Beyond Ragnarok

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “So you did not come to rescue the captured Renshai?”

  “There’s a captured Renshai?” Ravn asked more from surprise than concern. Colbey had taught that any Renshai would joyfully die in battle before letting an enemy take him hostage.

  Captain seemed equally surprised. “Haven’t you noticed one missing?”

  Ravn shrugged. It was not his way to keep track of such details, except where they affected Griff. He realized now that the elf seemed to be evaluating him with far more accuracy and skill than Ravn could do in the reverse. It made little sense to continue under such conditions. He changed the subject. “Thank you for your assistance. Any suggestions as to how to approach the village?”

  Captain accepted the abrupt tack and avoidance of his question without comment, though it surely told him as much as any answer. “Do you go in peace or with intentions of war?”

  Ravn appreciated the question. Some would assume the latter for no better reason than the presence of his swords. Too many who reaped the benefits of the lands and freedoms soldiers gained them reviled those same men as having no other skills than killing. “I have no intention of harming anyone.” He did not explain his constraints further. Should the elves discover that he could not slay them, any threat he might need would lose significance.

  “Even if they refuse you what you seek?”

  “Even if they refuse me.”

  Captain nodded several times. “Then go with my blessing, Human who Travels to Islands Without a Boat. And I’ll revel in the understanding that Brenna spoke truth about Colbey. When you return to where you came from, please bear my fondest greetings to your father.” With those words, obviously intended as a farewell, he scrambled back onto his roof and again looked out over the sea.

  But Ravn could not let the conversation end there. “You know?”

  Captain returned his attention to Ravn, his expression slightly disconcerted, probably due to the need to continue after having delivered a strong final line. “I know. But I have access to much that the others would scarcely think to consider.”

  “You were a friend to my father?”

  “At a time when nobody else was, yes.”

  “He’s never mentioned you to me.”

  Captain smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me. Colbey was never the type to dwell on past prowess. His heroics to him were nothing more than proper behavior. He performed more of value day-to-day than most men ever did in a lifetime, and the only thing he believed worth bragging about was his birthright as a Renshai.”

  “My father?” Ravn repeated, incredulous. “A hero?”

  Captain laughed, as if Ravn had uttered the silliest words in the universe. “You are Colbey’s son?”

  “Yes.” Ravn saw little reason to hide that now. Besides, the elves might prove more cooperative knowing he was a god.

  “Colbey was the consummate hero, the hero heroes envied and desired to become.” Captain added, almost reluctantly, “And equally hated for much the same reasons. Humans and elves alike tend to revile and attribute to demons or evil that which seems too special or which they cannot understand.”

  “My father was a hero.”

  Captain laughed again. “I can understand he would not boast of his prowess, but surely you noticed no one could best him with a sword.” Captain considered a moment. “Or perhaps that’s not true in Asgard.” He stared intently at Ravn, perhaps to test the veracity of his own observation.

  But the words turned Ravn’s thoughts to his recent victory, still a red-hot joy within him. It never occurred to him that Captain attempted to affirm that Colbey and Ravn lived among the gods. “It was true,” Ravn replied. “Until today.”

  Captain did not speak, but his brows rose nearly to his hairline in encouragement.

  “I bested him in spar,” Ravn said, unable to wholly banish pride from his voice. His father taught him to keep his accomplishments to himself, to find satisfaction from within, and to have no need for other’s awe. Vanity is the one sure path to self-destruction, Colbey had said on more than one occasion. One does not become the best by degrading others but by hard work and practice.

  “Then you are a skilled swordsman, indeed.”

  Ravn saw no reason to reply to such a statement. False modesty would prove as demeaning as pride. “You were a friend to my father. Will you help me protect my friend?”

  Captain sighed deeply, a sound strangely full of pain. “I could watch your boat for you, if you had one. I can advise you. But I can’t assist you. Not so long as the elves oppose you, and we both know they will.”

  “Even if you tell them to cooperate?”

  “That would make them certain to oppose you.”

  Ravn wondered what Captain had done to make him so hated by the others of his ilk, but it did not seem prudent to ask. “You won’t help me?”

  “I can’t,” Captain reiterated. “I am always an elf first and foremost, just as Colbey is always Renshai. One elf can never stand against another.”

  Ravn shrugged. It seemed to him the others had stood against Captain obviously enough. Yet he would not press. He did not need Captain’s help, it would only have made the matter easier for all of them. “It’s your decision, of course. But don’t make invalid comparisons. My father would stand against anyone he felt was doing harm to the world, even me.”

  Captain did not doubt Ravn aloud, though his expression conveyed it well enough. “Regardless, elves cannot work against one another. I told you the way, and I condone your peaceful intentions. Should they prove otherwise, I will oppose you as strongly as my people, whether I believe them right or wrong. Please, don’t put me in that position.”

  Ravn appreciated the intensity of Captain’s loyalty, if not its direction. He also read the sincerity of the warning. “Thank you,” he repeated. “You’ve been very helpful. I wish you well and hope your faith doesn’t cause you too much pain before it kills you.” Having turned the tables for strong final words, Ravn departed, quickly striding beyond range of Captain’s voice.

  But that did not deter the elf. His voice touched Ravn’s mind, a gentle and mellow good-bye that conveyed several words at once. *Fare well, son of my friend.*

  Fare well, Ravn tried to send back, uncertain whether he had communicated his message. His father’s lessons had included mind strengthening techniques, but he had not inherited his father’s ability to read thoughts, nor to broadcast his own. Colbey claimed the ability, which he named curse as often as gift, had not come to him either at birth. He had worked as hard for it as he had for his skill with a sword.

  Captain’s cabin swiftly disappeared behind Ravn’s ground-eating stride, and the sand became mixed with moist, dark earth in greater quantities. Soon Ravn’s path became solid enough that his feet sank only slightly into the ground, and the sand no longer trickled between his toes. Grass dotted the land in intervals, growing denser the farther he went from the shore. He tried to consider strategy, but such thoughts seemed old compared to the new ideas Captain had inspired. Colbey, a hero. The consideration did not sit well in his adolescent mind. He recalled how surprised Modi and Magni had seemed upon discovering that most of the deities had considered their father not only moody and powerful, but intellectually slow. Ravn already knew the other gods viewed his father as an arrogant upstart, and most still considered him a mortal granted privileges rather than one of them. Even after longer than three centuries, he remained an oddity among the gods, a renegade with philosophies contrary to gods’ logic.

  Much of that attitude, Ravn believed, came of Colbey’s own tendency to consider himself human. He called himself Colbey Calistinsson, never Thorsson. He accepted others naming Thor his father only because he knew the lord of thunder had never been given the opportunity to act as a father to him. The goddesses had tricked him into knowing nothing of Colbey’s birth. Had Thor deliberately broken contact, Ravn guessed, Colbey would deny any connection at all. But a hero? My father? Ravn chuckled. In every tale Ravn heard, th
e humans had despised his father. Yet Captain’s words cut deep. Humans and elves alike tend to revile and attribute to demons or evil that which seems too special or which they cannot understand.

  Many thoughts he would never have considered in the past bombarded Ravn now. Suddenly, he believed he knew why Colbey clung to his humanity so tightly. Those who attributed his skill to his birthright irritated him. Ravn had watched his father’s practices for as long as he could remember. Often, they ran from sunup to sundown or beyond; and, always, his intensity exceeded even that most dedicated to survival. If it came to a choice between sword work and breathing, Ravn held no doubts his father would choose the former. Now that he had finally bested Colbey in spar, Ravn believed he understood. The doubts some could raise by attributing his victory to the three quarters of his inheritance that came from gods might rob him of the self-esteem won only by constant practice, effort, and more than a little desperation.

  A voice resonating through Ravn’s mind broke his train of thought. *A human approaches!*

  *Where?* followed in more than a dozen mental voices.

  A detailed description of location followed, mostly in comparison to various positions of creatures, certainly elves, with exceptionally long names. All of this happened in the time it took for Ravn to take a single step. He continued forward amidst a wild flurry of speculation and comment that was cut off suddenly by a single, shouted command. *Fools! Call your khohlars one-on-one. He can hear everything, you know.*

  The mental communications broke off suddenly, just as a fenced in compound became visible through the trees. Ravn glimpsed occasional movement as elves flittered into position, though he got no clear look at any of them.

  One elf broke the silence, *Jovinay arythanik! I’ll cast.*

  Ravn guessed they intended to throw some sort of spell. He remained alert but unconcerned, familiar enough with magic to know how to avoid it. Like his parents, he had no specific ability to cast spells, but his father had taught him ways to deflect and ruin the magic of others. While this bothered those gods who did rely more on spells than on force, especially Ravn’s Uncle Frey, it seemed likely to prove useful now.

  A murmur of sound erupted from ahead and to Ravn’s right. Ravn continued walking, tuning his thoughts to the rhythm of their chant, then substituting sounds into the cycle of their repetition. He chose syllables that fit smoothly, naturally, following the pattern without disrupting it. Even as a new voice joined the others, louder and more crisply direct, he inserted his sounds into the composition. Ravn did so aloud, with a gentleness that made his voice a part of the whole. He matched his tone to their alien cadence as well as simulating their timbre and pitch. He also attempted to send the notes telepathically, practicing the mind power and control his father valued nearly as much as combat.

  Eventually, the chanting stopped, having had no effect on Ravn that he could fathom. Now behind Ravn, the elves disassembled amid consternated comments and a flurry of abbreviated questions. Ravn heard the rattle of brush as the elves repositioned and regrouped. The buildings came into view, most large and communal in appearance, surrounded by a fence constructed of mesh triangles. They resembled human structures in a general way, but the details defied all logic. Bracing boards often sat in locations more suitable for decoration than stability. Rain gutters were set too high to drain, and the serrated leaves of the native trees replaced the woven thatch that protected many people from the rain. The arrangement of cottages and larger buildings formed no obvious pattern, and hundreds of elves played, relaxed, wrote, or conversed in groups outside. Many perched in nearby trees. Two crude stone statues of bears guarded the arrangement, a mockery of Béarn’s statuary.

  The chanting started again as Ravn headed toward the buildings, the tempo more hurried and the volume louder. The noise drew the attention of the uninvolved elves, and they scurried in various directions. Most joined the group of chanters, who had drawn too near the structures to hide from Ravn anymore. Many clambered up nearby trees, watching him from the safety of the branches like squirrels. A few entered the buildings, though these seemed more often to be the males, which suggested to Ravn they were calling for reinforcements rather than going inside to hide.

  Again, Ravn worked his additions into the elves’ song, sliding them gracefully into the pattern so that no one seemed to notice the change. He examined the buildings, trying to select the prison from among the others. Even had he known much about imprisonment, the elves’ incomplete reconstruction of human structures would have proved incomprehensible at best. Tired of guessing, he approached the line of elves.

  As their magic failed a second time, the elves abandoned it. Those who carried weapons drew them, and a line of wood and steel abruptly confronted Ravn, cutting him off from the compound. Those unarmed retreated behind the others or swung into the trees to watch from a position of safety. Ravn stopped, hands gliding naturally to his own swords. Battle, he knew, and it did not daunt him. But a larger concern did. He not only had to best these elves, he had to do so without fatalities. Combat without killing went against every tenet he had ever learned.

  Shortly, a new figure appeared in the uppermost window of the tallest structure, a three-story one composed of mud-chinked logs that directly overlooked the site of conflict. Pale reddish hair curled around somber features with heart-shaped lips and one canted, green eye. Those who noticed the newcomer visibly relaxed. A leader, Ravn felt certain.

  The leader did not bother with the convention of limiting conversations to keep Ravn from hearing. His mental voice rang out over the gathering, *Stand where you are!*

  Ravn little doubted the leader intended the words for him as well. He remained in position. Cooperation might keep this meeting as peaceful as possible.

  The elves, too, froze, their weapons still drawn though they did not attack.

  The leader elf switched to verbal communication, using the trading tongue, clearly for Ravn’s sake. “Who are you, human? Where do you come from? And what do you want?”

  Having been asked three questions, Ravn chose the one he most wished to answer. “I’ve come to watch over Griff.”

  “Griff?” the leader repeated. “What is a griff?”

  Ravn refused to accept ignorance as an answer. Surely Griff had told his captors his name. “He’s a prisoner of yours, and I’ve come to be with him.”

  “We have no prisoners,” the leader returned, a blatant lie.

  Ravn refused to play the game. “You may take me to Griff and lock me up with him. I will go peacefully. Or I can battle my way through your guards and get there myself. Your choice.”

  The elves tensed, ready. The leader’s nostrils flared, though he remained in silent contemplation for several moments before speaking. “Elves, step away.” He went quiet again, single eye fixed on Ravn but his mind clearly elsewhere. The elves began a softer, more cautious chant that Ravn dismissed as necessary for opening doors or lowering defenses. Too late, it occurred to him that the elf leader’s apparent silence might represent mental communication rather than pondering. By then, the carven bears had already begun their transformation.

  The statues shifted. Hair sprouted from every part, and the eyes took on a dull sparkle little more animate than the flat stone. Elves scrambled for trees, corners, and doorways, those involved in the jovinay arythanik retreating in a more orderly fashion. Grotesquely misshapen by the artisans who created them, the bears charged Ravn together. Ravn drew and cut. A sword cleaved the air in front of one’s nose, a defensive strike to hold it at bay. The other sword wove between the second bear’s massive paws and jabbed cleanly through its chest. That one collapsed, bloody froth bubbling from its jowls. Ravn jerked his blade free, still weaving the other in front of the bear to confound it. As the creature reared back, Ravn’s upstroke drove a sword through its lower jaw and into its head. He twisted as the bear fell, using momentum to keep his sword from becoming trapped. He took a step back into a defensive posture, both swords raised,
one trailing blood.

  Prepared for deceit, Ravn refused to become angry. He kept his breathing calm and soundless, and his manner composed. Surely nothing could unnerve these elves more than the quick and easy dispatch of their dirtiest trick. He did not even bother to look at the corpses, their lumpy bodies and narrow heads bizarre compared to the beauty nature had given its own creations. “Interesting,” Ravn finally said, “but not part of what I asked for. Take me to Griff. Lock me up with him, and I’ll give you no more trouble.”

  The leader’s gaze shifted repeatedly from swords, to bears, to Ravn. “You want us to lock you in the dungeon?”

  “With Griff,” Ravn repeated. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  An understandable question, one Ravn refused to answer except as a means to restate his demand. “I want to be with Griff.”

  “But you don’t want him free?”

  Ravn shrugged. “His safety, not his freedom, is my concern.”

  No whispers passed among the elves. Ravn attributed this to their ability to speculate telepathically rather than to any lack of imagination. The leader said, “We don’t allow swords in our prison.”

  No Renshai would willingly sacrifice his sword. “You’ll have to make an exception.”

  The leader made a thoughtful noise. “Am I to understand that you won’t attempt to free your friend?”

  “That’s correct,” Ravn affirmed, uncertain whether he would believe such a claim had he stood in the leader’s place.

  “And what do we get out of giving you what you ask rather than cutting you down where you stand?”

  Ravn ignored the fallacy the leader had accepted as truth: that the entire population of elves could kill him. Likely, even Colbey could not stand against all of them; but Ravn would not accept it as fact until as many as he could slaughter lay dead. “You get as many of yours still alive as I would kill if you tried. A fair trade, I think.” It was a bluff, but the elves could not know that.

  “Very well,” the leader agreed, his expression altering only slightly. Ravn believed he read thoughtful confusion there and wondered whether the leader questioned Ravn’s sanity or that of all mankind. Likely, many human motivations escaped him, and he might credit Ravn’s odd request to his humanity. “But if you lied to me about your intentions, I will see that your friend dies in the most horrible fashion possible. And you, too.” He motioned for the weaponed elves to step forward.