Part 15 (2/2)
After dragging himself ash.o.r.e, Hermod sat on the beach, filling his lungs with air. Mist hovered over him, catching her own breath after a tirade about how long he'd been underwater (much longer than it had seemed to him, apparently) and how only Grimnir's muscle power had prevented her from diving in to retrieve his corpse. The eyeball felt like a partially frozen brussels sprout in his hand, slimy and cold and slowly thawing.
”Got it,” he wheezed, loosening his grip to show his prize. In the open air, its color was a sad yellow, with a cataract film over the iris. He had to hold it away from Winston, who tried to sniff it.
Are you awake? Hermod thought at the eye.
The eye silently glistened.
He asked the question again, this time aloud. The lack of response didn't surprise him.
”So,” Grimnir said. ”The eye of Odin. There it is.”
”Yeah.”
”Do you feel wiser?”
”I feel like c.r.a.p. And not any smarter.”
”Maybe it's not enough just to have the eye,” Grimnir suggested. ”Maybe you have to yank out your own eye and shove Odin's eye in the socket.”
”Great idea. You first.”
Grimnir demurred.
Hermod stepped to the edge of the lake, where Mimir's brow, nose, and chin stood out in the black water like the raw white of a cut tree root.
”Now what?” Hermod called to the head. ”What do I do with it?”
Mimir let out a long, hollow sigh. ”Much the same question Odin asked after taking his draft. He had gained knowledge of the worlds' end, but what ought he to do with that knowledge?”
”What did you tell him?”
”The same thing I shall tell you, walker of in-between places: Seeing isn't everything.”
”That's what pa.s.ses for wisdom these days?”
With great weariness, Mimir closed his eyes and sank into the waters. A few bubbles broke the surface, and then the well was quiet.
”Guess that settles it,” Grimnir said. ”You'll have to pull out your own eye.”
Hermod wrapped the eye in his handkerchief and tucked it in his jacket, against his belly. The chill leached into his skin.
MUNIN AND I circle three thousand feet over calm Pacific waters, above the delicate ring of the Enewetak Islands. Munin has been quite generous in sharing the history of the atoll and its people with me, and I reward him by pecking his neck in midflight to make him shut up, but not before I've learned about Operation Hardtack, in which the United States conducted thirty-five nuclear detonations in the South Pacific before calling a halt to the tests in 1958. The island was rendered uninhabitable, the soil and lagoon irradiated. Later, at great cost, the islands were cleaned up and the people returned-only to be evacuated again last year for the resumption of nuclear tests. As Ragnarok approaches, the bonds of kins.h.i.+p among men break, including those codified in nuclear nonproliferation treaties.
Down below, a small flotilla of Navy vessels is sprinkled one hundred miles off the atoll's western edge. ”USS John S. McCain, Arleigh Burke-cla.s.s destroyer,” Munin says. ”USS Gary, Oliver Hazard Perry-cla.s.s frigate. USS Ronald Reagan, Nimitz-cla.s.s supercarrier.”
While Munin goes about naming every single s.h.i.+p in the group-a feat that he will no doubt follow up by reciting the name of every single crew member-I'm more interested in the reason the s.h.i.+ps are here: a barge about the size of a family restaurant, to which is moored, at a depth of two thousand feet, a thirty-megaton bomb.
The s.h.i.+ps have charts and calculations that help them keep a safe distance from their monster, but there are other monsters in the deep. The greatest of all is a son of Loki: Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent. It lies on the seafloor, its hide camouflaged with crags and volcanoes. Whenever it twitches in its sleep, tidal waves kill hundreds of thousands. It opened its great red eye once, and fish took to land and evolved lungs and legs, just to get away from it.
When the men of Midgard detonate their bomb, there is very little drama at first. No fireball, hardly any noise. But a moment later, a dome of spray rises a third of a kilometer in the air, and a gas bubble of indigestion bursts through the dome, sending a surge of salt.w.a.ter jets almost four thousand feet up, chasing Munin and me skyward.
Below, the Midgard serpent remains sleeping in the poison currents. It takes a lot to rouse such a serpent from its slumber. But then there is a voice in the gurgle and rush of water. A soft voice, motherly and soothing, but also insistent. It is the same voice that long ago extracted the oath that failed to protect Baldr.
”Time to wake up,” the voice coos. ”You have work to do. Wake up, Jormungandr, and fulfill your destiny.”
The oceans fill with the groans of whales, and the Midgard serpent stirs, slowly rising from its ancient sleep.
HERMOD NAVIGATED SLEIPnir through a long, twisting network of seams that finally led back to Venice, California, Midgard. The streets were flooded up to six blocks inland. Offsh.o.r.e, chunks of ice bobbed in the swells, a sight novel enough to draw people out with their cameras, risking the waves in dinghies and Zodiacs. Ragnarok was gawk-worthy. When Mist spotted news vans broadcasting from the highest ground with their telescoping antennae raised into the soggy sky, she gave Hermod a nudge. They'd have to be particularly careful to avoid being seen. Mist didn't even want to think about the chaos that would ensue if Channel 5 caught a glimpse of an eight-legged horse crab-walking through Venice.
On the other hand, there was plenty of spectacle to keep all the news outfits occupied. An earthquake, maybe several, had struck while they were away. Venice had become a geological jigsaw puzzle. Places of low elevation had been thrust upward by earthquakes. The remains of the boutiques on Abbot Kinney clutched precariously to the now-sloping street, while the hills north of Mar Vista had melted in mud slides.
”G.o.d, look at that,” Mist said, peering through the opening of the alley Sleipnir crept down. Amid a jumble of snapped telephone poles, the corpse of a forty-foot-long gray whale lay trapped in the lines. Pigeons and rats and gulls and crows squabbled over the remains.
The party dismounted to get a closer look, leaving Sleipnir in the alley. Grimnir's boot heels crunched over buckled sidewalk as he walked beside Mist. ”Now what?”
”Now you go home,” she said.
”To my Boston flat? I'm sure NorseCODE stopped paying rent on it once Radgrid realized I'd gone AWOL.”
”No, I mean home. For you. Valhalla.”
He stopped, giving Mist a suspicious look.
”I failed to rescue Adrian Hoover,” Mist said. ”I failed to save Lilly. Odin's eye isn't talking to Hermod. The world is dying, and I don't think there's anything more we can do about it here. But maybe if you go back to Asgard, back with your Einherjar buddies, you can tilt the balance in our favor.”
Grimnir walked on, mulling. ”Thanks, but someone still has to watch over you.” He gestured toward Hermod, walking a few yards ahead with Winston. ”You've fallen in with a bad crowd.”
”You've already done your part, trying to raise me right,” Mist said. She tried to keep her tone light. ”You taught me to fight with a sword and hot-wire a car. You didn't turn me over to Radgrid. You helped me find Hermod. And I dragged you to Helheim. You, a warrior who earned heaven. You deserve to be in Asgard, and I want you to go.”
”Come with me,” Grimnir urged.
Mist smiled. She shook her head. ”Heaven's not my home, Grim. I have to stay here. Maybe there's a food bank or something I can volunteer at. You know, while you're swinging your sword, I can roll bandages.”
Grimnir scratched his boot heel on the pavement. He sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his nose.
Hermod turned back and approached them. Mist could tell from the look on his face that he'd overheard.
”What about you?” Grimnir said. ”Our side could use another G.o.d. Glory and adrenaline, and what finer end could you ask for?”
Hermod seemed touched by the invitation. ”Thanks, but I'm staying. Midgard's the closest thing I have to a home.”
Mist held out her hand. ”Give me your lighter, Grim.”
”Kid ...”
”I'm still your boss, Grimnir, and you swore an oath to me. I know you swore other oaths, but this is the one you chose to honor above all others. Now you get your reward. I'm a Valkyrie, and I'm sending you to Valhalla. Give me your lighter.”
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