Avengers

by Dan Abnett

  He grinned at her. That god-spirit confidence again.

  She caught herself and smiled back ruefully.

  “Yeah, I know. Like this is safe.”

  “Do what you can,” he said.

  “The first thing I have to determine is where we are. Exactly where we are.”

  She sat down on the filthy, wet ground and scooped up a handful of black soil, examining it.

  He watched her.

  “It may take some time,” she said, without looking up. “Geomantic divination is painstaking.”

  He nodded, breathed out, and folded his arms.

  “Gather some wood,” she told him.

  “Wood?”

  “Firewood. The trees, Thor. Get plenty.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  He left her sitting in the mud and walked through the fog to the nearest tree. He put his hand on the gnarled trunk and, as was the Asgardian custom, uttered an apology to the tree for bringing it low.

  Then he felled it with a single blow of Mjolnir.

  He broke up the branches into rough staves and piled them in a stack. Eerie sounds, like the cries of winter foxes, floated in through the fog. Every time he stopped breaking wood to listen, the cries abated.

  There was something in the mist.

  He finished the labor and trudged back to the Scarlet Witch. He held a burden of splintered wood cradled in one arm, and the bulk of the tree trunk braced across his other shoulder.

  She was still staring at the dirt, letting it trickle out of her hand.

  “Where do you want this fire?” he asked.

  “Here. Beside me.”

  “The wood’s sodden and full of rot. I doubt it will burn.”

  “It’ll burn.”

  “I know you’re cold, woman, but won’t a fire give away our location?”

  She got up, brushing her hands clean.

  “It’s not for warmth,” she said. “We need protection. Plant that trunk here.”

  She pointed to a spot on the ground near where she had been sitting.

  He raised his eyebrows, then did as she told him. He lifted the tree trunk in one hand and drove it down into the mud.

  “Good,” she said. “Now take some more wood. Walk that way. Thirteen paces from the trunk.”

  She pointed.

  Grudgingly, he scooped up an armful of wood and started to pace out from the stump.

  “How far?” he called.

  “The distance doesn’t matter. The number of paces does. Was that thirteen?”

  “I…” he paused. He walked back to the stump and repeated the action, counting each step this time.

  “Thirteen.”

  “Plant some sticks there. In the ground.”

  Thor half-buried a handful of sticks upright at the spot. “Like that?”

  “Now walk to your left from those sticks. Again, thirteen paces.”

  He looked at her, bemused.

  “Please, Thor.”

  He counted off his steps again.

  “Thirteen.”

  “Put more there.”

  He obeyed.

  “Now left another thirteen steps,” she said.

  He paced them out, then shoved another bundle of wood into the mud.

  “And again. Thirteen.”

  He moved around in a circle until he had planted six stakes of wood at thirteen-pace intervals around her. He was now facing the first clutch of sticks, in the center of the pattern. He walked toward it. To his amazement, it was exactly thirteen paces away.

  “How in Odin’s name—?” he muttered.

  “Ritual symmetry,” she said. “These things just happen. It’s exhilarating when the universe reveals its secret magic, isn’t it?”

  He scowled.

  “It makes me uneasy,” he said. He heard a sound and glanced sharply out at the drifting fog in time to see a shape stirring briefly.

  “There’s something out there in the fog, Wanda,” he warned, “and it’s getting closer.”

  “Come back to me.”

  “Thirteen paces?”

  “No, regular walking is fine.”

  He trudged back to her side.

  “Six points,” she said. “A hexagram. Not much, but it’s the best we can improvise.”

  “If you say so.”

  She turned to face the central stump, repeatedly sliding the back of each hand across the palm of the other. Then she aimed her open palms at the top of the broken trunk.

  Thor heard the sound again. He looked out into the fog.

  He saw dark shapes moving in the mist. They were emerging from all sides, plodding into view. They looked like wolves—big wood wolves, padding forward on all fours, heads down. But they lacked pelts. Their skins were jet-black and scaled like crocodiles.

  Their long snouts were armed with big, discolored fangs. Their small eyes shone yellow.

  “Wanda,” Thor urged.

  The beasts approached out of the fog from all directions, slow and cautious—prowling like curious wolves or hungry big cats. There were several dozen of them. He heard them yap and cry to each other. Then a menacing, predatory growl grew in their throats.

  “Wanda!”

  She was concentrating, her palms still aimed at the upright trunk.

  He stepped away from her, drew his hammer from his belt, and started to circle—eyes narrowed, stare flicking from one beast to another. He was looking for the sign every good huntsman knew: the tremble, the slight rise in slouched, rolling shoulders that betrayed the switch from slow prowl to sudden sprint.

  Which creature would come first?

  Which one would lead the way?

  The big one. A pack leader if the Odinson had ever seen one. It stalked ahead of the rest, looking right at him, malevolently intent. It took a step, then paused, one front paw raised.

  Thor gripped Mjolnir tightly and bent back his arm, ready to cast.

  The beast broke and charged. Damn the gods, it was fast. It bounded through the line of wood staves like a loosed hunting hound, jaws open.

  Thor swung hard through the waist and launched Mjolnir. The hammer flew, head-first, and met the charging beast. The blow smashed it off its feet and sent it rolling, yapping and thrashing across the mud.

  Thor caught the hammer as it sailed back to him.

  Emboldened by their sire, the other beasts charged. All of them at once.

  “Wanda!”

  Concentrating on the fallen tree trunk, she uttered a word he didn’t understand: odd, strangled syllables in a language the human mouth wasn’t designed to articulate. Light shone from her palms, and the top of the broken trunk burst into flames. The flames rose, fierce and bright-white. She uttered another word—her left hand held to the fire, fingers splayed—and one by one, the six wooden markers of the hexagram combusted, too.

  The charging beasts crashed to a halt, tripping and recoiling as though they had run headlong into a wall. An invisible barrier had sprung up between the burning points of the hexagram surrounding Thor and the Scarlet Witch.

  Picking themselves up, the beasts retreated, whining and barking. They trotted back a few yards, then turned and sat, gazing in through the conjured defense.

  The pack sire got back on its feet and shook itself off. It was inside the ring. Thor ran at it and struck it back down with his hammer. It yelped and bit at him. He grabbed it with both hands, hoisted it above his head, and threw it beyond the circle of fires.

  It landed hard, uttering a plaintive yowl. Then it rose and took its place with the others.

  Thor looked out at the sets of yellow eyes staring in at them.

  “Clever,” he said. “A ring of protection.”

  “I wasn’t sure I could do it,” Wanda replied. She looked drained. “It will keep them out for now. Long enough for me to continue my geomancy.”

  “How long will it endure?” Thor asked.

  “As long as the wood does,” she replied.

  She sat down again and scooped u
p another handful of dirt to examine. Thor waited. Thunder rolled in the distance, but it was not the kind of storm-thunder that was his friend.

  He watched the yellow eyes out in the dark beyond the flames.

  Half an hour passed. An hour. Thor paced. Whenever he looked up, he glimpsed godless stars beyond the murk of the storm cover, the baleful antimatter suns of this alien dimension.

  Wanda suddenly called his name. Her tired eyes were bright.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I know how to make contact,” she said. She cast the handful of dirt aside.

  He helped her to her feet.

  “I don’t need to know where we are,” she said. “There’s one bond that transcends dimensions. One bond that defies location.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, Thor. Blood. The bond of blood. The familial tie.”

  “You mean your brother?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Kinship crosses the gulf. Any gulf. I should have thought of it sooner.”

  “Better your brother than mine,” he said. “Just tell me what to do.”

  She put her hand to her brow, weary. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Wanda? What do we have to do?”

  She looked up at him.

  “I need…”

  “What?” he asked.

  “One of the metal scutes from your chest plate,” she said, pointing.

  He frowned, and then tore one of the round, raised disks from his hauberk and handed it to her. She turned it over in her hands, studying it.

  “Okay, this will do,” she said. “Hold out the hammer. Hold it steady.”

  He did as she instructed. Outside the hexagram, the beasts lifted their heads and watched with hungry curiosity.

  Wanda scraped the edge of the metal disk back and forth against the hammer’s head. She worked it repeatedly for a minute or two, then looked at it again.

  “All right,” she announced, satisfied.

  He glanced at the fires. The wood was burning down.

  Wanda pulled off one of her gloves and, without warning, drew the now sharpened edge of the disk across her hand. Blood welled immediately.

  “Wanda!”

  “Blood is a necessary part of this,” she said. She blinked back discomfort. “Pain, too. It will make the message sharper.”

  She raised her hand and made a fist. Blood squeezed out between her fingers and ran down her arm. It dripped from her fist onto the ground below.

  “Pietro,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “Pietro…”

  She pressed her bloodied fist to her forehead, repeating her brother’s name.

  “Thor,” she whispered. “I can…I can feel him. I can feel his soul. I think I can reach him…”

  “Keep trying,” he said. He heard the beasts yelp and yap, disturbed. He looked around.

  A dark figure walked toward them out of the fog. For a moment, Thor wondered whether it was the Avenger Quicksilver, Wanda’s brother, summoned to them across the void by her astral magic.

  But it wasn’t.

  The dark beasts whined and shuffled back, making space in their ranks for the figure.

  “There you are,” said Dormammu.

  Wanda gasped and fell to her knees, sobbing.

  “It’s gone!” she cried. “The connection! It was there, and then it broke!”

  “Easy,” said Thor. If the Witch couldn’t call for help, they would have to fight their way out.

  He looked at Dormammu. The mage-lord was a sinister shadow: tall and grim, a figure of midnight darkness except for the magical fire licking and crackling around his grinning head. He was a despot, a conqueror, a ravager of dimensions. Realities shuddered at his name. There were few beings in the universe who had mastered sorcery more thoroughly and cruelly.

  The flames wreathing the tyrant’s skull were brighter than the faltering fires keeping him out of the ring. “A hex ring,” he said, observing. “Crude but efficient. While your fuel lasts, at least.”

  “I do not understand it, but it will keep you out,” said Thor.

  “Indeed,” Dormammu agreed. “Ritual circles, rings, stars—they are powerful symbols. Amplifiers of the maker’s art. Odinson, you are so ignorant of magic. A sorcerer builds a ring as a mechanism to magnify his craft. He is the center of the circle. Through this hexagram, the human girl boosts her energy and keeps me at bay.”

  He looked down at the beasts waiting patiently at his side.

  “Me, and the scavengers that night brings.”

  Dormammu turned back to look at Thor.

  “But she is very tired, and very weak,” he said. “And hers was not a honed talent to begin with. She is mortal, and young. She has no experience, no lifetimes of study and training. When the wood is exhausted and the flame sputters out, her power will fail. Your protection will fail. And then...”

  The mage-lord of the Faltine let the idea hang in the air.

  Thor walked forward and faced the dark lord across the invisible line.

  “Grant me a boon then, dark one,” he said. “To pass the time while we wait for the end.”

  “A boon?” Dormammu’s maw widened in the flames, and laughter spilled out.

  “What is this?” asked Thor. “Why do you make your play for Earth?”

  “It is too precious to lose,” Dormammu replied.

  “Lose?” Thor repeated.

  “I have tried to seize the Earth before,” the sorcerer said. “It is unusually valuable due to its alignment, its place in the cosmic structure. It is a world of particular force and energy, a rich seam of magic. There are few sites in the universe of greater mystical significance. I have no wish to see it destroyed or wasted. I seek to own its power, to make it mine, rather than see it burned away and annihilated.”

  “Are you not the annihilator?” asked Thor. “You are unleashing destruction upon Midgard.”

  “Destruction?” Dormammu chuckled. “No, Odinson. This night is marked only by the pains of birth. The agonies of a necessary transmutation. I do not seek to destroy the mortals’ world. I am transposing it into my Dark Domain, so that I may possess it and protect it.”

  “From what?” asked Thor.

  “All is lost,” said Dormmamu. “This much I know. This I have read in the embers of augury fires. This I have beheld in crystal scrying. This I have learned firsthand from the agents of the true annihilator.”

  Thor shook his head.

  “What are you saying? Something threatens the world of men, and this is your way of saving it? By claiming it like a trophy and stealing it away into your fell dimension?”

  “It must not be lost,” declared Dormammu, the flames of his skull flaring. “The mystical integrity of the cosmos would be weaker without it. Better this fate than its destruction. In time, the humans will praise me for their salvation.”

  “A long time, methinks,” said Thor.

  “Yes. Centuries, I imagine, given the stubborn traits of humans. But they will learn to be grateful.”

  “What threatens the Earth, dark one?’ asked Thor.

  “Earth has enemies and rivals,” said Dormammu. “It is strong, and it is unusually blessed with curious beings. It has no idea how much it is feared and hated and envied.

  “An ultimatum has been issued. The Earth must be changed. It must be diverted from its inexorable rise to dominance. I have heeded that ultimatum. I am the agent of that change.”

  “And is your work done?” asked Wanda. “Is Earth now fully drawn into your realm and lost forever?”

  She had risen and come to stand beside Thor. She hugged her arms to her body, pulling her cloak tight. She looked drawn and deathly. Blood from her hand smeared her clothes.

  “Oh, Mortaldaughter,” replied Dormammu. “You understand ritual well enough. One does not simply move a world without the consent of the heavens. Now that I have caught the Earth on my hook and pulled a portion of it through into my domain, I must wait for the hour of alignment so that
I may finish the transference.”

  The Dread One looked up. The six brightest stars in the sky above, abhorrent red lights glowing in the darkness, had formed an almost perfectly circular constellation overhead. A ritual circle billions of light-years in diameter. Only two were out of alignment, the circle not quite formed.

  “How long?” asked Wanda, shivering.

  “Five hours,” replied Dormammu. He looked down at the bonfires of the hexagram.

  “But long before then,” he said, “your fires will go out.”

  FIFTEEN

  MADRIPOOR

  02.02 LOCAL, JUNE 13TH

  THE GAMMA bomb sat on its payload carriage in front of him.

  Banner took a step toward it. He realized he was shaking, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  The bomb was an ugly thing, bathed in the cold light of the overheads. Its casing was bare metal. Bunched cables and monitor leads trailed from the bomb across the floor, leading to the banks of diagnostic and control instruments on either side of the chamber.

  He felt the bomb brooding, as though it were alive and sentient. It was a huge gray monster with untold destructive power slumbering inside it, ready to be unleashed. Though its final form had been heavily influenced by the High Evolutionary’s advanced methods, Banner recognized the basic elements of the design. He recognized its heritage. He recognized its DNA. It had its father’s eyes.

  Despite the superficial differences, it was identical to the weapon he had spent years of his life developing.

  Except it was considerably bigger.

  “‘I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,’” he murmured, a catch in his voice.

  “Ah, the Bhagavad Gita,” responded the High Evolutionary behind him. “The Hindu holy book.”

  “No,” Banner began quietly. “I was—”

  “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” said the High Evolutionary. “The so-called ‘father’ of the atomic bomb. He quoted the verse—though in his own, inadequate translation of the original…‘kālo’smi lokaksayakrt pravrddho lokānsamāhartumiha pravrttah.’

  I have always wondered at his sentimentality. He used the phrase, we are told, as an utterance of self-horror. Yet why was he surprised?”

  Banner managed to tear his gaze away from the bomb. He felt sick. He was still trembling. The bomb chamber occupied a large section of the High Evolutionary’s Lowtown lair, a massive factory level above the lab that had been cleared out, its windows and skylights sealed. The bomb seemed to fill it. He looked around at the High Evolutionary.