Ragnarok 03 - Resonance

by John Meaney

  What lay at the galaxy’s heart was not a black hole, and perhaps never had been.

  How is it that nobody knew?

  Good question.

  It was not formed of matter at all.

  THIRTY-NINE

  EARTH, 793 AD

  Morning mist failed to cloak the stench of the dead. Slaughtered villagers and holy men, here and there a whimpering survivor – which meant only that their entrance to Hel’s realm was delayed for a while – and soon there would be the buzzing of flies and rustling of beetles, unless more people came to burn or bury the folk of the Holy Isle, whose beliefs and sanctity had so clearly failed to save them.

  Fenrisulfr led good men.

  A woman was moaning from behind a pig-sty, and someone else was breathing heavily, but there was no reason to investigate. Among the drying blood and hardening gore were fresh shoots of green grass, while sparrows squabbled heed-lessly nearby, and the weight of his sword on his hip – he had laid aside his axes for now – with the soft squeak and smell of the leather, were comfortable and pleasing and somehow very new, as if he were seeing the Middle World through a child’s eyes.

  I lead good men.

  It was the thinnest of thoughts, like a dying man’s voice.

  Stígr felt my vengeance.

  And so did all these slaughtered people whom he had never met before, who had never heard of Ulfr’s – Fenrisul fr’s – home village, or of the poet Jarl slain because of Stígr’s machinations, or of Eira, sister to Jarl and volva to the clan and everything to the heart of a young warrior and dead, so long dead, because of Stígr’s dark sorcery once more, and how was any of this going to bring her back?

  It wasn’t. Nor would she recognise him, the man he had become, if she could return, for in a real way Ulfr also had perished a long time ago.

  Brökkr and four of his strongest fighters were standing in front of him.

  ‘Chief. Feels like the morning after.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Got treasure to take home, but I’m not sure about young Thóllakr’s haul. Gold and steel don’t eat. Drink blood maybe, but you don’t need to carry food for them, is what I mean.’

  Fenrisulfr squinted at him. ‘Speak plainly, Brökkr.’

  ‘There.’ Brökkr gestured with a hooked thumb. ‘Got himself a thrall, if you can call it that.’

  ‘Óthinn’s piss,’ said Fenrisulfr. ‘I might have known.’

  Two of the fighters chuckled, but their smiles were vicious. This was going to cause trouble, and it amused them. And if they were the ones to spill someone’s blood, then all the better – at least that was how Fenrisulfr read their thoughts, and he had been a reaver chief for a long time now.

  Too long, by the Norns.

  That, too, was a new thought.

  Thóllakr’s bounty was the girl – young woman – who had been tending his wounds when Fenrisulfr had slain Stígr and triggered the Holy Isle’s doom, the destruction of those who lived here. Except that Thóllakr had taken this one for his own, and not by force, to judge by the way she clung to Thóllakr’s arm and stared down at the ground, avoiding everyone’s gaze and clearly wishing they were not here.

  Wishes count for nothing.

  If they did, then Eira would still be—

  Enough.

  He forced himself to speak. ‘You’re claiming her, is that it?’

  ‘I am,’ said Thóllakr. ‘Her name is Thyra and she’s from an inland village and we’re— Well, she’s under my protection.’

  ‘Under your hips,’ muttered one of the fighters, poking one finger through the fingers of his other hand, and waggling it.

  ‘When we move inland,’ said Fenrisulfr, ‘I want you to remain behind with the guarding party. And no trouble, Thóllakr. All right?’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  ‘And while you’re here, there’s a roan gelding by the foundry that I like the look of. I want him looked after for me. Take your thrall, and if she knows how to groom and feed a horse, let her help you. Do it now.’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  Fenrisulfr looked at Brökkr, thought of spinning on the spot and slamming his heel into Brökkr’s liver – the kind of kick that drops a man, leaving him conscious and wishing he were not, because of the pain – but an ambush shot was not the way to deal with a feisty former lieutenant who might be considering a challenge for leadership of Fenrisulfr’s people, combining two bands into one. Domination for face had to be overt, against a prepared foe, though sneakiness in a fighter was and always would be a virtue.

  ‘Walk with me,’ he told Thóllakr. ‘Bring the girl.’

  The two leering fighters looked at each other, wondering if Fenrisulfr was going to assert his right to take her, either while Thóllakr watched or after Fenrisulfr had beaten him unconscious, assuming he protested. Fenrisulfr noted this but did not comment further, waiting instead until he, Thóllakr and the girl were far from the others. He pointed at the horse, still tied up where it had been.

  ‘The gelding is strong,’ he said. ‘Can carry a decent weight.’

  ‘Er, yes, chief.’

  Fenrisulfr looked at the causeway peeking through the waves, joining the Holy Isle to the mainland. ‘My orders are that you exercise the horse while I’m gone. I’ll let the rest of the guarding party know that. When you cross to the mainland,’ he added, ‘don’t even think about heading west inland, because you’ll miss the rest of us, since we’re turning south.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Then if you carried on riding, deep into Northanhymbra, you’d find yourself among strangers, maybe even Thyra’s people. And if you ended up staying there, you’d have to learn a new way of speaking, earn a living without killing, and all the rest.’

  Thóllakr was swallowing, gripping Thyra’s hand hard.

  ‘In years past,’ Fenrisulfr went on, ‘our people ruled here, so they know us. But Erik Bloodaxe is dead these forty summers, and the current king is named Æthelred, one of Thyra’s folk.’

  Hearing her king’s name and her own, the girl stared at him.

  ‘May the Norns treat you well.’ Fenrisulfr clasped Thóllakr’s shoulder. ‘And to Hel’s realm with them if they don’t.’

  Finally, Thóllakr grinned.

  ‘Yes, chief. Thank you.’

  Fenrisulfr walked away, pulling his cloak around him.

  No looking back.

  Brökkr was looking thoughtful when Fenrisulfr returned. Ivarr was with him, in addition to the four fighters from Brökkr’s band. Fenrisulfr gestured towards the causeway.

  ‘We’ll cross at low tide. Have you decided who’s to be left behind?’

  ‘I have,’ said Brökkr. ‘You want me to run through the names?’

  Fenrisulfr shook his head.

  ‘I trust your judgement on this, as in everything else,’ he said. ‘But I would have private words with you, brave Brökkr. By the holy men’s fortress?’

  ‘Er, yes, chief.’

  ‘Come, then.’

  Of course Brökkr was suspicious, but Fenrisulfr, not carrying his axes, spread his hands openly as they walked, keeping to Brökkr’s right side, and asked a question in an easy tone just before the pivotal moment, so that Brökkr’s mouth was open, his mind and tongue forming the reply – the estimated distance the raiding party could cover per day – when Fenrisulfr’s body slammed into his. Fenrisulfr grabbed Brökkr’s sword-hilt at the same time as whipping his head into the side of Brökkr’s jaw – a sideways head-butt, almost getting the knockout – and slamming his knee into Brökkr’s thigh – no point in trying for the groin because Brökkr was fast even when surprised – and pulling free, drawing his own blade left-handed, a reverse grip but never mind because he had two swords and Brökkr had none, and as Fenrisulfr swung both blades high Brökkr flinched and tried to duck beneath as Fenrisulfr had hoped and this time he drove the knee in with maximum force, smashing into Brökkr’s face, then swung his left hand thumb-first and still holding the snatched swo
rd so its hard pommel drove into Brökkr’s temple and then he was down.

  There was a water-skin nearby, and after giving Brökkr a few moments languishing in dreamworld, Fenrisulfr splashed the water over his bloodied face, and waited while Brökkr coughed himself awake, then glowered at Fenrisulfr.

  ‘You’re already a good leader,’ Fenrisulfr told him. ‘And capable of leading my men in addition to your own.’

  He had both swords in normal grips now, his wrists and forearms loose and ready.

  ‘Huh.’ Brökkr pushed himself up to a sitting position, knowing better than to rise any further. ‘Not when I let sneaky bastards catch me like that.’

  ‘Thóllakr and his thrall are under my protection. Swear by Thórr you’ll leave them unharmed, and tell your men to do likewise.’

  ‘Huh? You only have to give the order and we’ll—’

  ‘Swear.’

  Brökkr wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand, snorted, then spat a red gob of snot onto the grass. ‘I swear by Thórr’s balls that Thóllakr and his woman will go unharmed. Good enough, chief?’

  Fenrisulfr shook his head.

  ‘I’m not your chief.’

  ‘You’re dissolving the alliance? There’s no—’

  ‘I’m making you chief of both our bands,’ said Fenrisulfr. ‘You’re more than good enough.’

  With care, he placed Brökkr’s sword flat on the ground.

  ‘You’re not . . . You mean it, Fenrisulfr, don’t you?’

  Fenrisulfr stared at the sea, so huge and uncaring of mortal affairs, and wondered how he could ever have thought his life was so important.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s my name any more,’ he said, more to the waves than to Brökkr.

  Without looking back, he walked down to his longboat, beached among the others. He told the men on guard about Thóllakr, that he and his woman were not be harmed and had orders to groom and exercise the roan gelding, across the causeway if Thóllakr wished. There was no hint in his tone that this was a final order.

  Then he fetched the crystal tipped spear from on board the longboat, slapped the dragon prow and went off to be by himself until night fell and he could slip away and – Norns permitting, and damn them if they did not – never be seen by his reavers again.

  He was thirty-three summers old to the best of his reckoning, stronger and faster than ever, as ruthless as he had to be, with no idea how he wanted to live the rest of his life, except that when he found the opportunity that must be out there, no one would wrest it from him.

  They could try, of course.

  I’ll still need enemies.

  What else gave meaning to existence?

  From time to time Chief Vermundr thought back to the days when Folkvar ruled the clan, and that young whelp Ulfr had shown so much promise that some people thought he would be made chieftain on Folkvar’s death, except that Eira had died and Ulfr had grown crazed and that was that: another young man gone to travel far, and by now he might be dead or rich, whatever the Norns decreed.

  ‘She’s gone, Father.’ His son Vítharr put a hand on Vermundr’s shoulder. ‘My mother has passed.’

  ‘I know.’

  They were in the men’s longhall, just the two of them, their words strange in the emptiness.

  ‘I know, my son,’ said Vermundr again, his heart hollow.

  He stared at the youth, feeling both proud and worried, because Vítharr was taking his mother’s death calmly but there was a streak of darkness inside him, and it could surface in cruelty from time to time. And avarice, when wandering storytellers sang of plunder and glory, of warriors founding new domains in the East. Some day Vítharr would take it in his mind to go, and perhaps that would be best for the clan, hard though it was to think so.

  In his mind’s eye now, Vermundr’s beloved Anya came back to him, her spirit reaching out from dreamworld before Hel’s dread ship Naglfar took her to the Helway, to suffer in Niflheim, Niflhel, for ever.

  I love you.

  And I you, always.

  He had first caught sight of her on entering Chief Snorri’s village, as was – on the day Arne became chief unofficially, later to be confirmed ceremonially, for Snorri had been killed in the fighting and only Arne had stepped up to organise the survivors. No one ever raised the subject of how soon Vítharr was born: seven months after Vermundr and Anya began courting, which was two months after they had met. Nor did anyone ever talk about the one eyed poet who had sojourned in the village beforehand, and tricked them into bloody conflict.

  There was a cough from the longhall entrance.

  ‘May I enter?’

  It was custom for even a volva to ask permission, this being the men’s hall, and she was new to the village and therefore still careful, though Vermundr had met her many years back, when they had been travelling to the Thing, and several times years later when she rode with traders. But last winter she had entered the village on foot, leading a daughter who was three or four summers old, and asked whether they had a volva she could talk to.

  But there had been no one in that position for a long time, and little by little she had made herself useful, healing and counselling, until Vermundr asked her to move in to the old volva’s hut, once occupied by Eira, and Nessa before her.

  Now she was here to comfort Vermundr’s tortured spirit.

  ‘Come in, Heithrún,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

  She came inside and bowed to Vermundr, and nodded care fully to Vítharr.

  It was always wise to be careful around him.

  FORTY

  COOLTH, 2606 AD

  Jed Goran had never wanted to be a spy – or even a spy’s husband, more to the point – but Labyrinth had enemies and backing down from a fight had never been Jed’s way. Yet there was bravery and there was foolish unpreparedness, so as his bronze ship orbited Coolth he minimised the external-view holorama and reviewed the briefing holos.

  So, Coolth.

  Ice locked continents; oceans where schools of huge balaenae swam, singing songs of epic learning and grandeur, where once every Coolth year, each herd, some two thousand strong, would gather around their vast matriarch whose skin nodules would begin to pulse and finally burst open, tiny forms streaking upward to the surface and up into the sky, for the nymph form soared like birds, a lifecycle discovered by an early explorer called Rekka Chandri, the events of her real life distorted by the popularity of a twenty-fifth century holodrama series called Chandri, Space Explorer, which created an extended and improbable mythology of its own, in which Pilots were always mysterious and undefeated in space or hand-to-hand combat.

  ‘True enough,’ said Jed aloud, and grinned.

  And what about Pilots’ ships, in the stories?

  He slipped lightly into trance.

  They were clueless about you, my love. And about Labyrinth’s existence.

  Just as well, perhaps.

  Jed returned his focus to the briefing material.

  *

  An hour later, they soared in to land next to Barbourville, an extended series of domes, some large enough to house potentially a thousand people – even though the entire station’s complement was no more than eight hundred – sitting securely on the icescape. It was historical coincidence that this, Coolth’s largest research station, bore the same name as one of Molsin’s former sky-cities that had perished in what people were calling the Conjunction Catastrophe – except that their understanding of what that meant was about to change.

  Clara, white faced, had shared news with Jed before he left Labyrinth, information that was yet to spread among the realspace worlds: Molsin had fallen prey to the Anomaly, and final intelligence reports – before surveillance devices stopped functioning and Pilot ships in orbit transited to mu-space before the Anomaly could subsume them – showed the baby sky-cities reaching out to the wreckage of the true cities, such remains as still floated in Molsin’s orange skies, and joining quickglass to quickglass, forming one great floating stru
cture that looked to be extending horizontally, perhaps eventually to cover the entire world like a spherical webbed shell.

  And there were hints that it was already lowering tendrils to the hydrofluoric acid oceans below, though for what purpose, no analysts were willing to say for sure. What was clear was that Anomalous components like Rick Mbuli – killed fortuitously by Jed, over and over in his dreams and in waking flashes – had succeeded in carrying out the act that Petra Helsen had only faked, in order to get the sky-cities firing on each other out of panic: carrying out the absorption of individual human beings into one giant planetary gestalt, either part of or identical in nature to the original.

  Fulgor, Siganth and now Molsin were lost.

  This is Coolth and we need to concentrate.

  You are so right, my love.

  Ice felt cold on their ventral hull as they landed, then Jed and ship slipped apart, their minds disengaging, so the ship could create an opening to the control cabin and use a slender tendril to carry Jed out and lower him to the chilly ground. He blew her a kiss, breath steaming, then trudged across hard-packed snow to the nearest entrance.

  His ship watched until he was safely inside, then she ascended, keeping her attitude horizontal, and took up a floating position a kilometre above Barbourville, ready to act should Jed need her, trying not to worry but unable to help it because this kind of operation was new to both of them, and risky enough for those with experience, never mind first-timers.

  Once indoors, the smartgel that had coated his lungs began to crawl up into his mouth, and by the time he walked into a grey-decorated concourse, he was able to spit the stuff out as a blue glob, and push it into a small pocket that formed in his jumpsuit for the purpose. His eyes were their natural obsidian with no need for disguise, as he passed research workers who gave small nods and grew quiet until he was past, a reminder that the mythology of centuries-old holodramas remained strong among most of humanity, arguably with good reason.