by C. Gockel
“No,” says Amy, her voice quavering.
Thor’s eyes slide to Amy. Her gaze is traveling between Bohdi and the space Viking. Standing up, she clears her throat. “And won’t you be off right away to find the new Loki anyway?”
Thor’s eyes don’t stray from her face. After a long moment, he says, “Aye, my father’s first orders upon my return will be to bring the new Destroyer to Asgard…for good.” His voice is almost a whisper.
Amy licks her lips nervously. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me where he is?” She shrugs. “Obviously there’d be no way for me to get to him before you…”
A long moment of silence stretches after her words. Bohdi swears he can hear every insect on the island cheeping. The tension is a little too much. Clearing his throat, he says, “The Destroyer…that’s one of Loki’s names, right? Doesn’t exactly sound like the guy you’d want to invite to the party…”
Both Amy’s and Thor’s eyes swing to where Bohdi sits against the rock.
“Errrrr…” says Bohdi. He pats his pockets frantically. Scrambling to his feet he mutters. “Where is my lighter?” Did he leave it at the table?
As he walks over to the table, he hears Amy say quietly, “You gave us your oath, Thor.”
His lighter is with Amy’s phone guts. He picks it up, gives it a flick, and is rewarded with a small burst of flame. “Hey, it still works!” He tries to sound cheerful, because obviously, something weird, tense, and unhappy is going on. Someone has to be the glass half-full guy.
Thor rumbles. “What about you, Son of Patel… Do you wish to return to Earth?”
Surprised by the question, Bohdi takes a tiny step back. Is Thor serious? The giant hammer-toting alien is leaning forward slightly, his eyes on Bohdi. Bohdi blinks at his seeming earnestness. He considers the offer… Asgardian culture seems kind of shitty. However, there are lots of shitty places on Earth he wouldn’t mind going to. The Congo, North Korea, to name two—just to say he’d done it.
Flicking his lighter, Bohdi looks between the space Viking and his companion of the last few days. Thor looks extra large standing so close to Amy—or she looks extra small. She’s brave and smart and cute…but there are a lot of cute girls in the world. Or worlds…and it’s not like they’re a thing…
Thor’s armor is blackened by soot—but it’s still impressive, in its video game, cool way. To go to a whole new world—with cool armor, weapons, and tech…without creatures trying to eat him at every turn.
Amy sucks in a breath. Bohdi meets her eyes. She looks afraid. More afraid than when they’d been chased by spiders, or a swarm of adze had been about to attack them. She could have left him with the spiders. Or let him drown. And he’s pretty sure she kissed him when they were on the log, trying to wish him better. Which is sweet. Even if it didn’t work. Or maybe only worked for a while.
He almost sighs. He’s so going to regret this. Clearing his throat, he says, “Ummm…if it’s all the same, I’d rather head back to Earth…”
Thor’s shoulders slump. “As you wish.”
Mouthing the words, “thank you,” Amy closes her eyes.
Bowing his head, Thor says, “We can be off at once.”
“No!” say Bohdi and Amy.
Lifting his big head, Thor blinks.
“I have a question to ask the Norns,” Bohdi says. He rolls his shoulders, and smiles. “I feel up to climbing the stairs.” He looks up at the dimming sky. “I’ll make it before it gets too dark.”
“You have a question for the Norns?” Thor asks sounding a bit incredulous.
Bohdi’s smile drops. “Errr…I thought they’d answer anyone’s questions in exchange for a task…”
Thor gives a hearty laugh. “Indeed they will, Son of Patel! And whatever task they ask of you, you can count on my aid.”
“And—” Amy starts to say, but Thor claps a hand on her shoulder so hard she almost falls over.
“And what, pray tell us, is your question? Do you seek a magical weapon? A map of the known worlds? The source of magic, perhaps?”
Bohdi shifts on his feet. Amy is rubbing her shoulder scowling at Thor.
“I uh, actually just want to find my parents,” Bohdi says.
“Your parents?” Thor says.
Bohdi shrugs. “I don’t remember anything before Loki—” He points a finger to his head, and gives a rueful smile. “Not even my real name.”
“Nothing…” says Thor. His shoulders slump and he looks like a kicked puppy.
Going to the table, Amy says, “Maybe you’d like some fruit for the climb?”
“Yeah,” says Bohdi, turning quickly away from Thor’s hurt. “That would be great.”
“You can take my flask,” says Thor, as Amy wraps up some food in Bohdi’s pink shirt.
“Thanks, man,” says Bohdi.
Thor beams, and presses it into Bohdi’s hand.
Since he has Thor’s attention, Bohdi asks, “So, if I don’t like the task the Norns give to me…do I have to do it?”
Frowning, Thor scratches his head. “Why would you come all this way and not accept the task?”
Bohdi shrugs.
Rubbing his chin, Thor looks up at the sky. “Aye, I suppose you could. But it might be unwise.”
For some reason, Thor’s words make Bohdi shiver.
Chapter 19
Flask belted to his hip, pink shirt with snacks wrapped around his wrist, lucky lighter and knife in his pocket, Bohdi sets off through the sparse forest. He follows the path Thor took. It’s not hard to follow felled trees.
As he walks away, he hears Amy’s voice carrying on the breeze. Her words are indistinct, but Thor’s response rumbles loud and clear. “Being a human would be ridiculous.”
Bohdi wonders what that’s about but doesn’t turn from his path; the first part of his quest is nearly done. His steps feel light. The air tastes sweet.
He does have a flash of apprehension as he gets close to the column. The stairs to the Norn’s abode are hewn directly into the pearlescent surface. In some places, the steps appear wide and steep, at other places low and narrow. If he tries to avoid looking at the surface, he’ll probably fall. Taking out his lighter, he approaches. To his relief, and sadness, the images sparkling there have nothing to do with him. They look interesting—people he’s never met, places he’s never been—but he doesn’t feel the same gut-wrenching need to watch.
Putting his lighter away, Bohdi takes the first step. And he’s suddenly hit with a sense of wonder and accomplishment. He’s made it to another world. He’s battled monsters with nothing more than improvised clubs and a knife. He’s somehow managed to win the affection of Thor—and maybe even Amy. Whatever the Norns task him with will be easy in comparison.
With a happy whistle, he begins to climb in earnest, taking two and three steps at a time. The column is about the width of a city block. Not perfectly round, the base undulates, like that of a tree. The stairs loop all the way around the column on their upward journey, allowing Bohdi to see the lay of the land. The island is shaped roughly like a bow tie, with the column as the knot in the center. The sound of waves from the opposite sides of the island crashing in the caverns at the column’s base reverberate through the air and in the steps.
The waves are still louder than Bohdi’s slightly labored breathing when he reaches the first landing. A few hundred feet above the sea, it is on the side of the column opposite Amy and Thor. The landing features a lip about seven feet wide, and a cave entrance blackened by soot that is about fourteen feet across and nearly as high. Bohdi slows his steps and cautiously approaches. Somehow he thinks the cavern maw looks much too dirty to be home to the Norns—
A giant maroon head shoots out of the cavern. Jumping back just in time, Bohdi nearly falls off the stairs.
The head turns on its enormous serpentine neck, and Bohdi finds himself face to face with Nidhogg.
“Bohdi!” Nidhogg roars, a tiny ball of fire forming at the back of the dragon�
��s tongue and escaping past his lips. Bohdi drops and rolls to avoid the flame and finds himself hanging on the edge of the steps. He looks down. It’s only about six feet from his feet to the loop of stairs below him, but he’d rather not have to walk up again.
“Oh, I am so embarrassed!” Nidhogg declares. “I could try and pick you up.” A shadow flows over Bohdi, and he feels a gust of heat at his back.
“No! Got it,” Bohdi says, hastily pulling himself up, and swings a leg over the steps. Climbing to his feet, he says, “I’m fine.”
Blinking his enormous eyes, Nidhogg seems genuinely embarrassed. Or at least, his facial scales seem a deeper shade of red.
“I am so sorry,” Nidhogg rumbles. Leaning the side of his head very close to Bohdi he whispers, “Truly, it was an accident.”
Bohdi blinks. He is talking…to a talking dragon. And how cool is that?
Patting Nidhogg’s head, Bohdi says, “No problem, big guy.”
Nidhogg’s head whips back, and the dragon gives Bohdi a toothy smile that is as friendly as it is terrifying. “Would you like to stop for a bite?”
Bohdi swallows, but he tries to give a cheeky grin. “I hope you don’t mean that the way I think you could mean that.”
Laughing, Nidhogg pokes Bohdi with his snout, and then pulls back, shaking his head. “Oh, no, no, no! Not that you don’t look delicious, mind you, but I’m on strict orders not to eat you.”
Bohdi gulps and tries not to look as discomfited as he feels.
Seemingly oblivious, Nidhogg smiles again and the little tentacles above his eyes waggle. “I’m smoking adze.” As if for emphasis, he lets out a puff of smoke from his nostrils.
Bohdi sniffs. The air smells slightly of pork. Trying to sound grateful he says, “Ah, thanks, but I’m getting really close to the Norns.”
The dragon nods. “Oh, right, right, of course!” He sounds very understanding, but his huge head still stays on the landing, blocking Bohdi’s way forward.
“Um, may I pass?” says Bohdi.
Nidhogg’s head jerks, and then head and neck slink back into the cave so that only his beaked snout peeks out. Rolling his eyes, the dragon says, “I am so sorry. I forget how you don’t have wings. Please don’t think me speciesist.”
“Nah,” says Bohdi. “Wouldn’t think you speciesist for that.” The desire to eat him on the other hand…Trying to appear nonchalant, he continues across the landing but can’t help stopping and peering into the cave. “How do you get in there? It’s too narrow for your body.” In fact, it seems barely wide enough for the dragon’s head.
Nidhogg’s head bobs and the column reverberates with his chuckles. “Oh, I enter at sea level. This is just a little window I like to peek out now and then. You never know what sort of errant adventurer will stop by for dinner.”
Bohdi tries to keep his eyes from getting too wide.
Nidhogg’s head bobs inside the cave. His eyes narrow. “But the Norns seem to have a thing for you. So I wouldn’t worry.”
Smoke puffs from the dragon’s nostrils and floods from the entrance. Raising an arm to his mouth, Bohdi chokes and coughs. When the smoke clears the dragon has vanished into the darkness of the cave.
“Why worry?” Bohdi mutters.
From the cave mouth, he hears a laugh and the stairs tremble beneath his feet. Turning on his heels, Bohdi starts quickly on his way. It’s only a half loop more, when Bohdi comes to another, wider, landing. This landing has a door set into the column. Nearly twice Bohdi’s height, it is made out of whitewashed wood. Emerald inlays with twisting leaves and dancing figures seem to move along its surface. It doesn’t appear to have a doorknob…but that isn’t what immediately concerns Bohdi. Sitting on a stunted branch jutting out just above the door is an eagle. The bird appears to be nearly as large as Bohdi himself—even with its wings tucked in. The bird is cocking its head in Bohdi’s direction. The feathers on the back of its neck are ruffled.
Bohdi’s heard about eagles on Earth occasionally killing sheep, and as it is, he’s fighting the urge to bleat.
What had Nidhogg said? The dragon was under strict orders not to eat Bohdi…maybe the eagle will be friendly-ish too?
Stepping forward, Bohdi tries to give his friendliest, most winning smile. “Hi!” He says.
The feathers on the back of the eagle’s neck rise higher.
Gesturing toward the door, Bohdi says, “I don’t suppose you’d mind if I just walked underneath you and—”
The eagle issues an ear-splitting shriek.
Bohdi nearly falls off the stairs. A low grinding noise sounds from the direction of the door, and it slowly begins to open inward.
Bohdi blinks. “Uhhhh…thanks…” he says to the eagle.
From the doorway comes an indignant huff. “It wasn’t his feathered chittta-chatt. It was me.”
Bohdi looks down to see Ratatoskr standing on two legs in the doorway.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” Ratatoskr chitters, ears back. “Come in!”
With a nervous glance at the eagle, Bohdi darts through the door. He finds himself in a windowless hallway, lit from the glow of the column’s pearly surface. Here and there, he sees more ornate doors, all as heavy and imposing as the first.
A low grinding reverberates through the hallway. Bohdi looks behind him just in time to see the front door slam shut.
At his feet, Ratatoskr clears his throat. “This way.”
Bohdi blinks down at the squirrel. “Are you sort of their butler?”
Ratatoskr’s eyes narrow. “No, I am not—”
Bohdi puts a hand to his lip, feeling the onslaught of an approaching sneeze.
Clearing his throat, the squirrel says hastily, “—not just their butler. I do other important things.”
Bohdi sniffs. His urge to sneeze recedes. He looks down at the squirrel. “Cool,” he says, trying not to sound like he almost just gave the squirrel another snotty shower.
Ears still back, Ratatoskr begins to walk down the hallway. “I’ve never liked you,” he grumbles.
Bohdi sniffs again, oddly hurt. “But we’ve only just met.”
Ratatoskr lets loose a cackle. “That’s what you think.”
Bohdi starts to protest, but then he hears laughter, light and feminine, rising around him, from everywhere and nowhere. He hears a voice say lightly in Hindi, “…a child that could carry us between universes.”
It takes Bohdi a moment, but he realizes it’s Chloe talking about Eisa.
“…If we knew how different events played out in different timelines, we wouldn’t just be watchers of history, we could shape it!”
“Chloe!” Lache’s voice snaps. What follows is an almost shout that Bohdi hears as, something-something-something-in-a-harsh-guttural-tongue, “…Hindi!”
He stops in place. Did Lache just tell Chloe off for speaking in Hindi?
He hears Chloe giggle, and a raspy laugh from Addie.
The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he can’t say why. This is hardly the weirdest thing he’s encountered since coming to Nornheim.
As if to punctuate that point, Ratatoskr grumbles a few words about apples, the In-Between, and broken ribs. The squirrel is still walking on two legs.
Bohdi jogs a few steps to catch up with the disgruntled animal. Flicking the flint wheel of his lighter, he feels the comforting burn of flame on his thumb. He doesn’t remember when he took it out of his pocket.
They approach a final door at the end of the hallway; it’s ever so slightly ajar.
“Hold on a chitta-chat-chat minute,” Ratatoskr says. “I’ll announce you—”
Before the squirrel has even finished, the door swings inward, and Bohdi finds himself face to face with Addie. The clothing she’d worn before hadn’t been precisely modest, but what she wears now is even less so. It’s still vaguely East Indian, but it is impossibly sheer. Bohdi can see every outline of her body, and the blush of the tips of her breasts—which, while they aren’t a
s full as he prefers, are still amazingly perky. He suddenly feels warm and lightheaded and knows it has nothing to do with a fever.
“Don’t you look delicious,” Addie says.
Bohdi’s eyes snap back to her face. She’s smiling, and ordinarily the smile and the comment would be an open invitation. But considering who she is and what she is…
“I could just take a bite out of you,” she adds with a laugh.
As Bohdi wavers in the doorway, he’s vaguely aware of Ratatoskr mumbling at his feet. “I am so chitting out of here.”
Bohdi forces himself to smile at Norn. “Should I be afraid you mean that literally?”
Addie leans closer and whispers, “Is that the question you came here to ask?”
Eyes widening, Bohdi takes a step back. “No!”
Addie laughs, and Chloe and Lache are suddenly at her side. “We know what you want to ask,” says Chloe. “Addie was just teasing.”
Reaching out a soft brown hand, Chloe takes Bohdi’s arm. “We’re really so happy to see you.” Sidling up beside him, she pulls Bohdi through the door. Despite the tempting female flesh around him, he can’t keep his eyes from wandering around the room. It is shaped like an enormous half circle. Beyond nine looms, he sees nine enormous windows, open to the Nornheim breeze. He blinks. No, only the one directly in front of him is open to Nornheim, the others open to other places. He sees a landscape of ice and snow in one. In another there is a smoldering volcano. One window overlooks a castle that looks like it was stolen from the set of a Disney movie. He sees rice paddies in another, and people who look vaguely like him—and yet…
Lache snaps her fingers, and all the windows shift so he is seeing only the Nornheim sunset. “Too distracting for the poor dear,” she says.
“Mmmm…yes…” says Chloe.
Bohdi blinks and his gaze drops to the looms. Eight show weavings that are near identical, but the ninth is a riot of color. He steps toward it. Addie snaps her fingers and all the looms disappear. “That will be too distracting as well.”
Arm still in his, Chloe leans close and whispers in his ear. “Don’t worry, you’re not missing anything. That weaving was only Earth, where you most recently came from. It’s the most exciting of the Nine Realms—for now.”
