Gods of Fire and Thunder

by Fred Saberhagen

  As simple and direct as putting a sharp dagger to your own throat—someone had said that, about the decision to put on a Face.

  But what else could he do? And besides . . .

  Hal was curious.

  Raising the object toward his own face, Hal let out a startled little grunt. Despite all his foreknowledge, at the last moment he had the feeling that the Face attacked him like a striking snake, leaping at him across the last few inches. At the same moment he'd felt it melting in his fingers, dissolved like a piece of ice in flame.

  A moment later, the Face had totally disappeared, and Hal knew a burning sensation that told him it had run into his head. He'd felt it go there, penetrating his left eye and ear, flowing right into his skull like water into dry sand. The first shock had been an ice-cold trickle, followed quickly by a sensation of burning heat, fading slowly to a heavy warmth . . . there was a long moment when his vision and his hearing blurred . . .

  Then he knew that it had happened, and he was still Hal, after all.

  Still Hal, yes, but . . . now he was different. At the moment, the most profound change was that he was no longer on the verge of physical exhaustion. Hagan had grown a new arm within an instant of putting on a Face, and now Hal thought he could feel himself twenty years younger.

  Now his enhanced senses could pick up the distant sounds of battle, a groaning and roaring, and now and then a real clash of arms. His eyes were now keen enough to pick out subtle variations in the strange glow near one side of the horizon.

  He also saw, in the far distance, a Spearless Valkyrie, who seemed to be urging her airborne Horse rapidly toward him.

  There was the Hammer, now docile and available, and he picked it up at once, knowing it would never dare to play tricks upon him now. Hal hung Myelnir on his belt, where once an axe had hung. Legend, current among gods and mortal humans alike, said that Myelnir had been made for Thor by gnomes, some of whom were as skilled with magic as they were with metal. Was the legend true? Even now, with centuries of divine memories to call on, Hal could not be sure, so ancient were the god and his great weapon.

  Even gods, Hal supposed, must have had a birth or a beginning somewhere, sometime. But Thor's origins were lost in the mists of his most distant memories.

  In other ways, the memories of a god's lifetime were more helpful. Hal could now at least dimly begin to understand the reasons for the current battle—although those reasons were still far from perfectly clear to either man or god.

  Hal's stomach, which the god now shared, was ravenously hungry, and Thor remembered several things that he could do about that. In the air there moved a certain power, whose mere existence Hal alone would never have discovered, and on the railing of the Chariot there suddenly rested a pair of delicious-smelling oatcakes, steaming slightly as if fresh from the oven.

  Hal tried one and found it very tasty.

  The galloping Horse bearing a Valkyrie was somewhat closer now, only a few miles away.

  His new memory did offer him one definite assurance: that what he ought to do before anything else was dispose reverently of the body of his predecessor.

  Thor's voluminous memories also assured Hal that cremation was the preferred method, in line with some ancient tradition whose origin was probably older than Thor himself.

  It took only a minute to straighten out the almost mummified corpse, decently close the eyes and clasp the hands upon the breast. There was no memory suggesting that the god's favorite weapon ought to be burned with him. The Hammer in its present form had outlasted many avatars and would probably outlast many more.

  The new god thought, and his old memory confirmed, that Wodan would be pleased to know that this was being done by and for his eminent colleague.

  In the swamp it might not be easy to arrange the proper fuel and heat for a funeral pyre. But if he did not take care of this matter now, the body of his predecessor would have to ride with Hal in the Chariot when he set out on his next task, which could not be long postponed; and that was an intolerable thought.

  The same servant powers that had brought the cakes now set about the job of arranging a suitable funeral pyre, stripping the dead body of the god's accouterments, and when all was in readiness, igniting flame. Nowhere near the spectacular display that Loki could easily have managed, but it would do.

  The pyre had been burning fiercely for half a minute, when the rider Hal had observed in the far distance at last arrived.

  The rider was Alvit, of course: her Horse came cantering at low altitude, skimming over the swamp. She had done her best to catch up with Hal in his mad flight, but the flying Hammer had outsped even the best that her mount could do.

  He was still just standing in the chariot, when she drew near and tugged her Horse to a standing stop in midair. She gazed at Hal for a long moment.

  "So, northman, I see you have survived again. I saw the smoke from a distance, and when I saw the Chariot, too, I thought that Thor was here. What are you doing in . . . ?"

  The truth was slow to force itself upon her, but presently it did. Then, while her Horse stood quivering in the air, she gave a long gasp and nearly fell off its back. She let out a little shriek, for once a very girlish sound. "My Lord Thor! You are . . ."

  As Alvit fell silent in confusion, Hal reached out and gestured. He was glad he had not yet put on the iron gloves. In a moment the Horse had brought Alvit near enough for him to touch her hand, and a moment later she was with him in the Chariot.

  "Never a lord to you, Alvit. I am still Hal." Still Hal, and always would be.

  But—not the same Hal that he had been. New differences were coming into view in rapid succession. It was like watching his reflection in a mirror and observing alterations. Thor's new body was not going to stay mud-covered for long, not if the god did not want himself to look that way. Rapidly the stuff of the marsh was drying on his body and falling away like loose dust, along with remnants of dried berserkers' and bandits' blood. He would be able to readily change his clothing, too, just by thinking about it, into something more appropriate for divinity. As soon as he got around to such details.

  "Be at ease." He thought his voice still sounded pretty much like his own, like Hal's. "It's all right, I am still Hal, I tell you. Talk to me, Alvit, tell me what's happening."

  She was standing close beside him in the Chariot, with her fists clenched nervously at her sides. "I am to tell you, my lord—I am to tell you, Thor—Hal—"

  "Yes, call me Hal. Take it easy. Calm yourself."

  Presently Alvit was able to inform him that Wodan strongly suspected that Loki was dead. Naturally the Father of Battles was ready to go to any lengths to get control of Loki's Face, so he could have that weapon delivered into the hands of one of his, Wodan's, worshipers.

  Alternatively, if there was already a new avatar of Loki, and if the reborn god should still be Wodan's foe, Wodan (or Alvit, serving by default as his strategist) was thinking that it would be best to fight the Firegod early, while he was still relatively ineffective in using the tools of his divinity.

  On the other hand, if there was a new Loki and he was inclined to be a friend to Wodan, then Loki might need immediate help in their shared fight against Giants and monsters.

  But whatever the true situation was regarding Loki, Wodan was still hoping to recruit Thor.

  Now Alvit could carry good news back to her god: that Haraldur the northman has picked up Thor's Face and put it on.

  Alvit's countenance showed the hint of a smile. "The face of my lord—Hal—in his present avatar has a . . . a certain majesty about it."

  "You can tell him also that my Hammer is now safely resting at my side."

  He thought the young woman shuddered slightly, glancing at the weapon. "You knew what it was going to do to Hagan."

  "I had a pretty good idea that Myelnir would mangle whoever put on Loki's Face, as long as the order to kill was still in effect. And I thought the world could probably spare Hagan."

  Alvi
t was contemplating him, shaking her head in private wonder. Then she gave a start. "But I am forgetting my duty! When any of us finds Thor, we are to offer him a courteous greeting from our master—there was flowery language, which I have forgotten, but it amounts to a greeting between equals."

  "Really? From Wodan?"

  Alvit blushed slightly. "As between near-equals, then."

  "Then carry my response to Wodan, in such language as you think will not displease him. But maybe I should ride to see him face-to-face, as soon as this ritual burning is completed."

  "Yes Hal, you should—but I am forgetting, there is one more thing. Along with his greeting, Wodan sends an urgent warning that he and Thor had better waste no more time, but get on with the job of slaughtering monsters and demons, the traditional enemies of all gods."

  When Hal/Thor thought for a moment, he readily remembered Wodan, and the details and ramifications of Thor's relationship with Wodan, from a completely different perspective than that of Hal the downtrodden recruit. The Wodan of many avatars ago, of ages past, had often been a very different individual from the confused dreamer of today. Thor's memory in this case was encyclopedic, extending through a gulf of time that must have covered many centuries. The exact number of years was something Thor had never bothered to count.

  Hal, a neophyte in his god-powers, realized that he might quickly be killed by the same power that had slain Thor's previous avatar. His vast new memory contained several possibilities regarding the precise nature of that weapon, and several suggestions as to which power of the Underworld might have wielded it. Unfortunately, there were some that even Thor knew little of.

  The natural-looking flames of the funeral pyre were waning, having accomplished the necessary destruction, and there was no further reason for delay.

  "Then let us go find Wodan!" Thor/Hal decided.

  He took up the reins with Alvit at his side, and at his touch the Goats sprang into action, dragging the Chariot into smooth and speedy flight. The Valkyrie's Horse kept up, air-galloping obediently just behind the speeding car, as if this were another accustomed exercise, until the speed became too great, and the riderless animal fell behind. The Goats, as Thor expected, seemed ready to provide all the speed that any god could want.

  * * *

  22

  The plain of Asgard," Hal/Thor mused aloud. With a gentle, practiced tug on the reins, he brought his Goats to a standstill in midair, so that a moment later the Chariot drifted down to rest on solid ground. Alvit, who had been riding beside him with her Horse following, relaxed a little.

  The god's vehicle had come to rest on the top of a bleak hill from which Thor/Hal could survey the scene of intermittent battle spread out before him. The forces of Wodan and his allies were no more than half a mile away, those of the Underworld somewhat farther off, a shadowy no-man's-land of varying width between. Beyond the enemy, some five miles distant, a line of purple hills marked the limits of Asgard.

  Alvit, of course, was not going to linger at Hal's side. Taking her leave with a few brief words, she remounted her Horse, and in a moment was riding to report to Wodan, whose own Chariot was visible near the center of his army's line.

  Meanwhile Hal paused to survey the scene. He was looking over the same broad sweep of land that Sergeant Nosam had once tried to point out to him when the two of them were standing on the battlements of Valhalla. At the moment, the distant walls of that stronghold were barely visible through a notch in a wall of mountains some miles behind Thor's Chariot.

  When the sergeant had been trying to tell him about the plain, the whole scene had been sunk in midnight darkness, and Hal's vision had been no more than human. So he could not recognize the landscape now—nor could Thor, who apparently had never paid much heed to Wodan's longstanding prophecies regarding a Last Battle.

  The square miles of Asgard plain might once have been good for grazing, but the land looked practically worthless now, being badly scorched, either by natural fire or magic, across most of its extent. Anyone who might have been living on it when the battle started must have fled days ago. The only remaining signs of human occupancy were a couple of small and distant buildings, already knocked to ruins.

  Thor/Hal spun his Hammer in his hand, his god's strength scarcely noticing the weight. It seemed to Hal that his new composite memory could show him very clearly the details regarding use of this superb weapon, the preferred techniques.

  But what to use it on? Across a great span of the vague distance, wreathed and muffled in smoke and dust, were the enemy armies. Such human forces as the enemy had managed to enlist in its dark cause—some kind of army scraped together, the Fates alone knew how—were hard to make out behind a haze of smoke and dust, even to the eyesight of a god.

  So far, no target worthy of Myelnir had come to Thor's attention. The enemy might well have seen his Chariot arriving on the battlefield, and the important leaders might have prudently retreated.

  Another object of Hal's concern was nearer. Shifting to a closer range, Thor's divine eyesight soon discovered the All-Highest. Wodan, as anyone who knew him would expect, was of course leading his troops, taking his place at their head as they entered battle or prepared to do so. And Hal/Thor thought that even the demons of the Underworld might well be affrighted at the sight. The Father of Battles presented a terrible figure, fully armed with his helmet and spear, riding his Chariot behind his eight-legged Horse, the terrible Sleipnir, who at the moment was snorting fire.

  Wodan had had much more success at mustering an army than some of his enemies had expected: his corps of fighting humans was relatively weak, but his wraiths and apparitions could frighten fleshly opponents who did not know how ineffectual they really were. This included most of the human mercenaries who now found themselves arrayed against him.

  Unless you were gifted with divine eyesight or knew where and how to look for them, the solid physical presence of human beings would be all but lost in the landscape of smoke and mist and magic, among Wodan's shadowy host of several thousand wraiths, their battalions spreading out for a mile to the right and to the left. But using Thor's vision, Hal needed only a moment longer to recognize one group of the real men as his former barrack-mates. On each side of Wodan's Chariot marched, or rather shambled, a crew of a few dozen men, the Heroes from Valhalla. Beside them, extending their ranks for some distance to right and left, was a small corps of human mercenary allies, no more than a couple of hundred, somehow recruited from nearby warlords.

  Wodan enjoyed the advantages and suffered the disadvantages of being really, thoroughly crazy.

  His behavior became impossible for the enemy to predict, and he thought his army was much grander and more effective than it really was.

  If Thor and Wodan had been able to seriously coordinate their power, victory might well have been theirs, and quickly, even against all the monsters. But that was not to be.

  Above the opposing armies and between them, half a dozen Valkyries, no more, were riding proudly in the air, circling the field with Spears in hand. Alvit had told Hal that Wodan had called the glorious sisterhood together, before sending them to search for Thor, and had addressed them for what he said would probably be the last time.

  The god had told his squadron of proud maidens that in this battle they must abandon their traditional role of recruiters. The last days had come, and this shabby force that he now led was all the army he would ever have. Instead, the Valkyries were to fight beside their master and, when called on, serve as Wodan's couriers.

  Having surveyed the field from a distance to his satisfaction, Thor took up his Chariot's reins and drove the vehicle directly to Wodan. As he came near the place where the All-Highest waited, Hal looked around for Alvit, but she was not in sight. Either she was with her sisters over the battlefield, or Wodan had dispatched her on some urgent mission.

  For the moment, the Chariots of the two great gods stood parked beside each other, Sleipnir's majestic presence in sharp contrast to
the grotesquerie of the Goats.

  Fixing Hal/Thor with his one-eyed stare, the senior god proclaimed in his rumbling voice: "Thunderer, I know it is a long time since we have seen each other—and yet you look strangely familiar. Have I met this avatar before?"

  Thor/Hal only shook his head, and reached out for a handshake, as between equals. "I too have the feeling that it is not long since we parted."

  Wodan, after a brief hesitation, accepted his hand. Immediately Hal/Thor tried to get down to business and open a discussion on matters of strategy and tactics. It seemed to Hal that there was no good reason, except for Wodan's craziness, for Thor and Wodan to fail to stand together against the threat from below the surface of the earth. Both gods were longtime enemies of the creatures from deep hell. The chief point of uneasiness between them seemed to derive from the fact that Thor was a patron god of the more numerous peasants and lower classes, while Wodan's devotees were chiefly of the elite. In the past, certain avatars of each had found this difference grounds for jealousy.

  Calling on Thor's vast memory, enlisting his deep intelligence, Hal did his best to come up with some coherent plan of battle. But the effort was practically useless. At the moment Wodan was unwilling to talk about much of anything except how he was going to mow down the enemy with his Spear, when shortly he rode against them.

  Suddenly the Father of Battles broke off, as if he had just remembered something of importance.

  "Tell me, Thunderer, where is Loki? Have you seen him? Is it possible he's allied with the enemy?"

  "In this case," Hal/Thor assured him, "he cannot be, for I have seen him dead."

  Wodan was unmistakably pleased. But a moment later he asked the inevitable question: had any other mortal yet picked up Loki's Face?

  It did not seem to Hal that now was the time to attempt any lengthy explanation. Sooner or later, some god or coalition of mortals would locate the Face of Loki and find some way of extracting it from its great lump of gold. But there was no point in hurrying the inevitable. The fewer who knew what had happened to the treasure, the better.