Part 22 (2/2)

”Our history is too full of seers and of our so-called betters using wisdom as an excuse to tie puppet strings to us all,” Hermod said. ”The eye is a remnant of a time when we Aesir, whatever we are, chose to play at being G.o.ds.”

Shadows made depthless caverns beneath Hod's brow. ”How would you destroy it? Throw it into the ocean? Bury it in the earth? Cast it into a volcano?”

”Pluck it out of my skull before it does damage,” Hermod said. ”Then cleave it with Vidar's sword.”

”It's no longer Vidar's sword,” Hod said mildly. ”Just as it's no longer Father's eye. Both are yours. You refas.h.i.+oned the world after your own design, Hermod, as decidedly as any G.o.d to emerge from fire and ice. Can discarding your tools ever change that?”

Hermod didn't answer. He walked away, and a few minutes later he found Mist, sitting alone on the swings. He stood before her and held out his hand.

She took it and smiled. There was a look in her eye.

”Oh,” he said. ”Is this a second date? Do you want ... Are we going to-”

”Shut up,” she said. ”You know we are.”

”Right here? In the playground?”

She put her hands on his shoulders, and he let her push him to the ground, and for a while the world was very strange, but only in a nice way.

MUNIN AND I circle above the playground, observing the two Aesir and their companions. Hermod and Hod, the last G.o.ds alive. Or, perhaps, the first G.o.ds of this strange new Midgard, if they choose to be.

”I didn't see this coming,” I say to Munin.

Munin chases a moth near the treetops and s.n.a.t.c.hes it out of the air.

The dominoes are spread out before us, not just in lines but in endless convolutions. They fall and rise with no pattern I can discern, as if they have a will of their own. I find them very discourteous. Ragnarok was the long-antic.i.p.ated end of everything. And now Hermod has given us an unknown tomorrow.

Which means today, anything is possible.

Below, Hermod whistles for his dog, and Winston runs to his side, excitedly whipping his tail. Hermod and Mist gather their few things and set off with Sleipnir, eastward, the rising sun bathing the sky in salmon-colored light to overtake the last of the nighttime stars.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Greg van Eekhout was born and raised in Los Angeles and lives in San Diego. You can visit his website at .

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