Bright Segment

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “All those years … thinking about me,” he said. “Ah, Hugin!”

  “It was a great evil thee did me, Munin,” said the other plaintively.

  “Ay, it was,” said Munin with some hypocrisy, which he immediately compounded with “I am a simple soul, friend Hugin, and do not understand exactly what the evil was, though I grant thee it was enormous.”

  “Thee conveyed those events … whatever they were … out of Memory, without Thought! This was never our way, Munin!”

  “Ah, that I know. That I knew then, but never understood. Before that night, we had long hours of flight for your thinking. In the press of circumstance, when Balder died, there was time to speak only as things occurred. Tell me, Hugin, is not the relation of things exactly as seen—is that not speaking the truth? That is all I did.”

  “Ay, it is the truth, just as a mound of bricks is a mansion. Truths must be arranged, Munin.”

  “And arranged, they are a different thing?”

  “They can be used for a different purpose.”

  “I am a simple soul,” Munin said again. “Could thee demonstrate the point for me, in such a way that I will understand and not insult thee again?—for I miss thee sore, Hugin,” he added with a rush.

  He saw Hugin softening visibly, and pressed his advantage. “I’ll tell thee exactly what I reported to Odin that night. If thought can make of these events a total different from what memory itself yields, I shall believe thee truly, and never insult thee again.”

  “Agreed. And will thee then fly back with me to Odin and behave thyself properly, henceforth leaving the final reports to me?”

  “Gladly.”

  “Then tell me these events from the beginning. You understand that I have been without memory for some while now.”

  “But never again!” said Munin heartily, and launched into an account of the events surrounding the death of Balder, from the god’s awakening with the strange fear, to the imprisonment of Loki. “Thus are the guilty found and justly punished!” he finished triumphantly. “What has Thought to say on this?”

  “Only that Loki is not guilty.”

  Munin stared at him in amazement. “I don’t see that!”

  “Don’t see! Don’t see!” jeered Hugin. “Know, parakeet, that thy two eyes are petty instruments which, at their best, are purblind. I have in here,” he croaked loudly, overcoming Munin’s approaching interruption, “a third eye which sees what you do not. That is what thought is for!”

  “It cannot make me see what it sees,” said Munin ruefully.

  “It can in time,” said Hugin. He sounded alive and in inexplicably high humor. “Come!” and before the puzzled Munin knew what was happening, he flapped skyward.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Jotunheim.”

  “But Loki’s in Gladsheim—or under it.”

  “Ay, but if he’s innocent, some Giant is guilty, and Jotunheim’s the place for Giants.”

  “But-but-but … thee don’t know Loki’s not guilty!”

  “The ways of thought,” said Hugin didactically, “are not those of observation and reporting. Thought is not limited to facts; facts are, thee will remember, but the bricks used to fill in a thinker’s design.”

  And until they reached Jotunheim, he would say no more.

  IV

  As they sailed over the low, wide, forbidding city, Hugin asked, “The Giantess—she who refused to weep for Balder. Does thee know her name, and where she dwells?”

  “Of course. She is Borga, a recluse and a small sorceress, and she dwells in yonder spire. But there is no connection, Hugin, between her and Balder or even Loki. I think—”

  “I think,” said Hugin loftily, and led the way to the spire. They alighted on the roof, and Hugin said,” Ravens are great mimics, and among ravens, thee has special talent, no? Can thee imitate the voice of Loki?”

  “That I can, to frighten Loki himself if I choose,” said Munin, most startlingly in Loki’s exact tone.

  Hugin cocked his weather-beaten head to one side and said, also in Loki’s voice, “This is but a poor imitation of thy talent, friend, but would it serve to baffle a Giant?”

  “It baffles me,” said Munin, awed.

  “I thank thee for the lesson, then,” said Hugin. His eyes sparkled in a way new to his fellow. “Now lead the way in some secret fashion which you, oh, Mimir among birds, surely know in this place, so that we may come upon the lady in her chamber unobserved.”

  Speechless with astounded pleasure, Munin crept to the crooked eave and along it to an odorous smoke-hole. Cautiously he put his head inside, and finding the firebed cold, gestured to Hugin.

  Hugin passed him, whispering “Silence!” and inched into the room.

  It was an almost circular turret room, fitted out as a combination bedroom and alchemical laboratory. Around it ran shelves filled with an inconceivable clutter of bins, bottles and bags, boxes, books and basins.

  On the bed lay Borga, and Hugin croaked—but silently—in surprise. For by human standards she was exquisite; even among the Aesir she would have passed as attractive. Nay, as wondrously fair.

  She was hardly the withered crone Hugin had expected. Turning from her, he edged along the shelf to which he had hopped. Coming to a large, long-necked flask which lay on its side, empty, he considered it critically, shifted it slightly so that its open mouth and neck almost paralleled the smooth wall. Then he thrust his beak into the flask, finding that there was just room for his jaws to open comfortably.

  To do this, he had to lie almost on his side. He gestured with one claw for Munin to do likewise. Then, with an effect that made Munin’s feathers all stand on end, he uttered a protracted and horrible groan, in an exact mimicry of Loki’s voice. The sound of it as it emerged from the flask was most extraordinary. The wall’s curvature made it seem to come from everywhere at once.

  Borga left her bed in a way which challenged description. Levitation, the power of which she certainly possessed, seemed to play no part in it, but she came straight upward while still flat on her back. She rose in the air, fell back, bounced once, and landed cowering at the far side of the chamber. Her head whipped from side to side, as if she were afraid to leave it facing in one direction for more than the smallest part of a second.

  “Wh-who … wh-what’s that?” she quavered.

  Hugin moaned again, and the Giantess seemed to shrink into herself.

  Again she cast about wildly. “Where—Art here?”

  “Nay; in Gladsheim,” Hugin intoned. He then made a spattering-hissing sound, which was like hot fat dropping into a fire, followed by an agonized gasp. “Ai-ee, it burns … it burns …”

  “By what magic—”

  “How do I speak to thee? Largely through the holes in thy conscience, little sorceress. Very little sorceress,” Hugin added scornfully. “I cannot come to thee; would that I could.”

  From that she seemed to take great courage. She rose and composed herself, and said in a voice more clear, “I have heard of thy torment, Loki, and I am sorry it is so extensive. But thee cannot deny that thee led thyself into it.”

  “But I am innocent!”

  “To a degree,” said Borga, and Munin, his awe renewed, nodded at Hugin. “But considering thy manifold sins, and the many that went unpunished, thee cannot claim complete injustice. And no one will believe thee! Tell me, whose fault is that, friend liar?” Her tone became increasingly confident and mocking. “Thee has interrupted my rest, good Loki. Why?”

  “To … to tell thee …” Again that shocking hiss, and the gasp. “Did thee never love me, Borga?”

  Now she laughed. It was not pleasant. “Well thee knows! I spurned thee always! Thee wanted not me. Thee wanted an amusement, something different—a sorceress who was a daughter of the Giant vizier.”

  Loki’s voice said, slyly, “Always?”

  She began to speak, then stopped, pale. “What do thee mean?”

  Hugin laughed. It was chillin
g. “Did thee enjoy Balder?”

  “How dare …” and then she was overcome by what seemed to be curiosity. “How did you know?”

  “What let thee think Balder would notice such as thee?” Hugin jeered harshly. “Stupid! to lull thyself into believing Balder would court and cozen and bargain for such coarse flesh as thine! The veriest sparrow could have told thee about guileless Balder, were it not for thy blinding conceit!”

  “But he did! He did!” she wailed. “And he made my head swim so … and he came so close, and then put me by and asked that of me that no Giant must ever share with the Aesir … and I refused, and closer again he came … and he said he loved … and I, I was lost, and I told him the Great Secret of Mimir, and then he took me, laughing …”

  She burst into a wild weeping, which was drowned out by a cascade of coarse laughter, echoing round and round the room.

  While it still echoed, Hugin snatched out his beak and whispered to Munin, “Can thee mimic Balder?”

  “Ay,” said Munin, “but ’twould be a desecration!”

  “Desecrate away, friend parrot. We have this pullet’s neck on the block.”

  “What must I say?”

  “Some Aesir love-making nonsense.”

  Munin put his beak into the jar, and Balder’s voice, hollowed by the resonant glass, rang out: “Beloved, thy limbs glow, nay, they dazzle me. Hide thyself in mine arms quickly. I die, I wither away standing so near the sun.…”

  “Balder!” she shrieked.

  On the second syllable Hugin had pulled Munin’s beak out and thrust in his own, and was again making that jarring, jeering laughter. “Na, na, not Balder; Loki, who swore to have thee whether thee’d have him or not. Loki, who fought Herindal in the shape of a seal. Loki, who can take any shape he chooses—ay, and any sorceress! It was I, I, Loki ye bedded with, thinking it was Balder—ay, and ye enjoyed it, crone!

  “It was I who stole thy Secret of Secrets, not Balder. And when next thee saw Balder, thee went to him mouthing and simpering, and thee took his honest innocence as a spurning. And for that thee killed him, that and for fear that he’d tell your Secret! Do you see what thee’ve done, thou thick-witted slut? Thee killed bright Balder for bedding thee when he did not; for spurning thee which he did not; and for possessing a Secret which thee never told him!”

  She stumbled across to the bed and crouched on the edge of it, gasping as if she had been whipped. Slowly, then, she looked up, and she had a crooked smile on her face. She forced words out between her teeth:

  “Then, Loki, for the crime I have done, I am free, and thee hang in the pit. For what thee led me to do, all the world accuses thee. Hang there, then; thy punishment is just!”

  Hugin pulled out his beak and almost comically scratched his head with his claw.

  Munin whispered, “What is this Secret?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I must think.” He closed his eyes tight.

  Munin was painfully reminded of the night Balder was killed, when Hugin went into this kind of trance and would say nothing until he had thought it all out. He glanced down. Borga the sorceress was waiting, breathing heavily.

  Abruptly Hugin slid his beak into the jar again, and Loki’s ghostly tones emerged. “The Secret …”

  For a moment Borga was absolutely still. Then she flung her head up. “What of the Secret?”

  Hugin said nothing.

  Borga whimpered, “Thee … thee haven’t told the Aesir?”

  Hugin intoned, “Think thee I have?”

  “No,” she whispered, “No, we … we would know. This is very … brave,” she said with difficulty. “If thee told, they’d free thee.”

  “And come for thee,” Hugin hazarded.

  “Ay.” She shivered. “If the Giants leave anything of me.”

  “So which is it to be, Borga?”

  “I don’t … understand.”

  Munin saw Hugin’s eyes squeeze tight shut for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll draw thee a problem, and thee may tell me if it is correctly stated. Stay in thy chamber for as long as thy safety lasts, and I shall assuredly tell the Aesir all I know. When the Giants hear of it they will kill thee. Or—”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Or,” he went on relentlessly, “come to Gladsheim and confess to Odin that thee murdered Balder. I shall be freed and banished and thee will die.”

  “Either way, I die!”

  “Ay. But there is this difference. Free me, and the Aesir never know the Secret. They will be content with their murderer. At least thee can make amends for thy stupidity without damage to the Giants.”

  She was silent a long time. Then she said, “Devil!” in a way which must have hurt her throat. After that, “When … when must I—”

  “It will take thee three days to reach Gladsheim. On the fourth dawn from tomorrow’s, I shall tell Odin the Secret or I shall greet thee. Choose.”

  She clutched her hands tight against her face for a moment, and then lowered them. She said calmly, “I will go, then.”

  She is brave, thought Munin. She is foolish and in some ways stupid, but she is brave.

  But the Secret—the Secret; what of that? Munin looked anxiously at Hugin.

  Hugin’s eyes were screwed shut again. At length he said, in Loki’s voice, “And when I am free, how can thee be sure I will not tell the Aesir our little Secret after all?”

  “Thee wouldn’t! Thy fealty’s with us! Thee’s a Giant!”

  “Only half, Borga. Thee’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Ay,” she said, her expression cloaked, but her eyes hot, “we’ll trust thee.”

  “Then farewell, Borga.” And suddenly, in a strained tone, “I have suffered enough!”

  Ay, thought Munin, that would be Loki’s way. Always a flash of drama. He drew Hugin close. “What of the Secret? Can we learn it?”

  In answer, Hugin pointed. Borga had moved to a table; she was drawing out a sheet of foolscap, a quill, ink. She sat down to write.

  “To Omir, her father the Giant vizier,” Munin whispered. With a bird’s eye and more memories than the human race, he could read it easily. “ ‘This is goodbye, father, and a wish that I could be mourned, but I cannot. Know then that I was tricked by Loki in ways I am too ashamed to write here; that through this I, yes, I, father, killed Balder; and that I have done the greatest evil of all in revealing to Loki the Secret of Mimir. I go now to Gladsheim to die for the useless murder, and Loki will be freed. See that he dies, for he cannot be trusted. Do not pursue me nor change this plan in any particular, lest the Giants lose the field at Ragnarok.’ ”

  “Shall we take the paper?” whispered Munin when she had done.

  “We need it not. Come.” Hugin seemed about to burst with joy.

  V

  Silently they crept along the shelf to the fire hole and squirmed through it to the brooding night of Jotunheim. Together they took wing.

  Ah, like the old days; to Odin, together! thought Munin joyfully.

  “Thee have made thy point, good Hugin,” he said, when they were over halfling country. “The facts I had never added up to the yield of your thought. How? How could you do it?”

  “By flights above fact,” said Hugin, “and the gathering of the facts below … Now, when first thee told me the story of Balder’s death, thought took me to a path wherein Loki, though an instrument, was not actually guilty. Following this, I could assume that if Loki were innocent, the strange woman at the feast was not Loki disguised, but a stranger.

  “What kind of stranger? A Giant, bearing some small charm to keep us from detecting her. You will, friend Munin, of course remember that she did not appear at the feast until Loki was cast out. He would have detected her, spell or no spell, half-Giant that he is. She stayed hidden, probably in the crowd.

  “And we know, too, that she arrived to find Balder apparently invulnerable, and that she skilfully pressed Frigga to reveal her oversight with the mistletoe. The rest of this woman’s work was
seen by all.”

  “But,” Munin objected, “how did thee conclude it was truly a woman?”

  “Because at the outset it seemed a woman’s crime. If a man is killed and has no known enemies, and especially if there is no obvious gain from his death, then the heart is involved somewhere.

  “Balder, however, was not as other men, other gods. If he spurned anyone, it was in innocence and without intent, and the whole world knew that. Hence his death had to be for two reasons—because of a woman’s scorn, and because of something else. It is easy to visualize a smitten lady killing herself over Balder; it is inconceivable that she would kill Balder unless something else were involved.”

  “What led thee to Borga?”

  “The noisiest clue of all, Munin. It was she alone who would not weep for him. This is one thing all Asgard overlooked because suspicion of Loki was so strong—just as all Asgard has forgotten that Loki wept.

  “So once we were led to Borga, we had merely to let her conscience work in our favor. The voice of Loki in her room spoke never from knowledge, save what she supplied. And so we forced her to confess, and further, to give herself up.”

  “Thee, not we,” said Munin reverently. “And what of the Secret?”

  “We do not know it completely, but we know enough. Borga wrote, … lest the Giants lose at Ragnarok. And that is sufficient, from what thee’ve told me—it is word straight from the heart of the Giant domain that such a thing is possible, the first since Odin entered the Well of Mimir the Wise, in the dawn of time.”

  “Mimir … he is a Giant!” cried Munin, fluttering excitedly. “And it must be one false seed he slipped amongst the treasures he gave Odin! And Odin—good Odin—never doubted it!”

  “As was said by our false Loki,” chuckled Hugin, “ ‘I have suffered enough!’ We shall take a weight from the sky-father, friend Munin. Perhaps he will wish to confront Mimir with the lie—that great tragic lie that the Giants must win the field at Ragnarok. But thought tells me he need not: Fate never dictated the doom of Asgard.”

  “Will Asgard be victorious then?”

  “The Aesir will win if they fight best, and that is all they would ever wish.”