The Jekyll Legacy by Jaye Michael & Levanah Greene Chapter Twenty-Seven Stay Me with Flagons

Victorian alchemy meets modern science and magic.
What could possibly go wrong?

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan (1798)

 

As honeymoon suites go, a small tent pitched upon a grassy field leaves a little something to be desired. Phil discovered this when he woke up yet again on the outside edge of their sleeping mat — a simple canvas bag stuffed with straw and sweet-smelling herbs — and had no blankets over him at all. It was their third night on the road toward the jumping-off point for Alfheimr, and he had yet to spend an entire night in perfect comfort.

His three wives, on the other hand, snuggled close and warm and nicely covered in the center of the bed, sleeping the sleep of the just and righteous. He found a certain wry satisfaction in the fact that he’d predicted exactly this situation so long before, on their last night at the crest of that chilly mountain pass, just after their dangerous encounter with the dwarves, and just before they’d descended to the Capital of the Empire, although it all seemed a very long time ago, before they’d met people — and other creatures — he’d only imagined from fairy tales. Gefjon had introduced herself as a Goddess as well as a Queen, and if their speculations about the exact boundaries of her sphere of responsibilities were even remotely on target, an extremely powerful one.

Idly, he wondered if she was also immortal, since she was a Goddess and all. He hoped that she was, now that he thought about it, since she would be an island of stability if, as he’d also foreseen, the three of them eventually used the formula to rejuvenate themselves and swapped their genders, as seemed to be necessary with the Jekyll process, although he still wasn’t quite sure about the reasons.

He thought about that for a few moments. Even Akcuanrut’s magical interventions in the case of the centaurs, and then the victims in the lower cavern, had seemed tied up in sexual power of one sort or another, although there were obviously other sources of power, like that which suffused the wizard’s world, and was available in caverns and a select few other places on Earth. Of course, he’d never attempted a transformation using that power, and neither had Akcuanrut. It didn’t feel right somehow, so there must still be rules he didn’t fully understand yet, but he had a sort of intuitive… premonition about the existence of possible reasons that might eventually lead him toward an answer, just as he’d had a ‘hunch’ about the megalithic structures.

Glancing over toward the sleeping women, he noticed that one, at least, was awake and looking at him with eyes half open. “Good morning, Gefjon,” he said quietly. “I hope that you were at least moderately comfortable, since I’m sure that our accommodations are less luxurious than you’re used to.”

She smiled, then said, “I’ve been on campaigns before, and am not one of those soft women you see from time to time. The most disconcerting thing for me is the generous welcome offered to me by your wives, and the loving concern that you yourself have shown me. Many men would have been both insulted and deeply resentful to be tricked into fatherhood, and imposed upon with such contempt. How is it that you can forgive me so easily, and treat me with such kindness?”

He thought about her question for only a moment before replying, “I think that you were confused by warring emotions within yourself, so your behavior was, perhaps, a little bit erratic. At one moment you despised me for what you thought I represented, an oppressive tyrant who would impose himself on young girls, and at the next I flatter myself that you admired me, and it was that impulse which led you to ask for — perhaps demand would be a better word — my protection as your champion. Your bad opinions of me didn’t really bother me at all, since they were so far from what I am — the man I know myself to be — that it was clearly a misapprehension, so I think the violence of your reaction was the result of your own conflicting desires.” He paused, thinking, then added, “The other part of my reaction was that I was more than a little confused myself. When we first met, when we were stepping off the bridge which had carried us from the world of the Giants to your own, I felt a frisson of some deep connection that I didn’t fully understand, since I’m no philanderer, chasing after women for the sake of novelty or lust. I’m a family man, loyal, steadfast, and true, so that peculiar feeling was a strange experience for me, but it seems now to tell me that we were meant to meet you, and that you’re destined to be an important part of our journey toward the future.”

“So you planned to marry me all along?” she asked.

“Not at all!” he said honestly. “I don’t think that it would ever have occurred to me without the spur of your pregnancy, although I might be fooling myself. According to the customs of my people, the fact that we’d been sexually intimate is a presumption of the intent to marry, however it came about, and your pregnancy by me meant — as I was pointedly reminded by Selene and Rhea — that I now had all the obligations of a husband, to provide for you and protect you, to the best of my ability, for as long as you cared to have me do so. The fact that there was a pre-existing… attraction… made that obligation much easier, but didn’t change my clear duty, which is as much due our children as it is you, as the mother of our children. I believe, however, that there was always the possibility — perhaps even inevitability — of a deeper love between us, however this feeling may have confused and conflicted us both at first, and that we were meant to meet and be together, whether the Norns spun the separate threads of all our lives into a single yarn or some other power, destiny, fate, whatever we wish to call it, did the same.”

“Do you believe in fate, then, despite your claims?”

“In part, but only a small part. I don’t think that our destinies are immutable, as I told you once before, but at the same time I’ve seen a series of the most unlikely ‘lucky accidents’ conspire to further our quest to save all our worlds, so many that it would be foolish to assume that everything is accidental, or that the future is immutable. When my wives first came to the world of Akcuanrut and the Empress, for example, out of the entirety of time and space they happened to encounter the wizard in the middle of a journey far from home, and it was his help which allowed them to survive, come back to Earth, and meet me, for which I’m very thankful, since their presence in my life has been a source of continuing joy.”

“Isn’t he just dreamy?” Selene murmured, obviously awake by now. “He’s the sort of man who says what he truly thinks rather than merely what he thinks you want to hear.”

Phil grinned. “I’ve always been a bit lazy, and figured out early on that lying was a lot more work than simply telling the truth, because it left far fewer conflicting ‘fictions’ to keep track of.”

“Liar,” Rhea retorted promptly. “Don’t believe him, Gefjon, not for a moment. The fact is that he’s a sentimental softie, through and through, and only pretends to be something of a rogue to spare himself the embarrassment of being caught being all lovey-dovey by ‘the guys.’ ”

“Bosh!” he said. “One of our most sacred texts is a love poem, to wit, ‘How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.’ There’s a guy who doesn’t mind talking about his shoe fetish, much less his love for a beautiful woman.” He paused, looking carefully at the three women sprawled on the mattress before him, then said, “I agree with him about the joints of your thighs, though. There’s nothing on Earth, or any world, more beautiful than the graceful curve from a woman’s waist to her hip and thigh.”

“Well,” Rhea admitted with little reluctance, “I did forget to mention how incredibly brave he is as well, and so well-spoken, not to mention ruggedly handsome, which lovely qualities are enough to make most girl’s hearts go pitta-pat, although of course Selene and I are much more discriminating.”

“Brains plus beauty is our motto,” Selene confided, “but the fact that you can count on him in a pinch is his best attribute, we think, especially once the pregnancy hormones start running through your head.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve had three children of my own, you’ll remember, but could barely stand having their fathers around for much more than the time it took to shake hands.”

Both Selene and Rhea laughed at that. “If we ever get back to Earth, there’s a vid we’ve just got to show you.”

“A fid?” Gefjon asked, clearly very puzzled.

“It’s the punchline to an old joke,” they said, “and it’s difficult to explain without the lengthy shaggy dog story which precedes it. Don’t worry about it. It’s not very important in the first place, and we have all the time in the world.”

‘All the time in the world,’ Phil thought to himself. ‘All the time left for the world, as I sometimes fear, or all eternity?’ He closed his eyes as an oppressive sense of panic almost overwhelmed him, but then he reached out to touch the nearest of his wives, and that simple contact grounded him again, and narrowed his focus to what was there before him, far more than he deserved. ‘One does the best one can,’ he thought. ‘ “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” ’ “All the time in the world,” he slowly mused aloud, “that’s more than enough time, I think.”

The southern edge of Vanaheimr was much like the northern edge they’d arrived on, and like that of the other worlds they’d seen, except that there was something like a rainbow spanning the immense gulf between two of the island worlds they could see far off in the distance, except that this rainbow had no particular relation to the sun, which was low on the western afternoon horizon as they looked to the south-east, toward the multi-colored arc of light. “What’s that?” Rhea asked, pointing toward the spectacular display.

Gefjon explained. “It’s Bifröst, the ætherial bridge between Miðgarðr and Ásgarðr, the worlds of human men and the Æsir, among whom was once numbered the old man you killed, my erstwhile ‘husband,’ although he never let the mere word limit the scope of his carnal adventures in the slightest.”

Phil laughed. “My very dear Gefjon, do I detect a certain lingering resentment? Surely an ignominious death at the hands of a mere mortal and the loss of any favorable reputation he may have had is punishment enough for any man. Should we try to resurrect him so we can kill him again?”

She smiled. “No, I suppose not. I have no particular fondness for either of his brothers, and see no reason to expose my new husband to a demand for wergeld that would benefit them. You may be very wealthy, but I’d hate to see you get the reputation of being a soft touch. One runs the risk of having a family — or a consortium of families — goad one of their less popular cousins into challenging you to a duel in hopes you’ll kill him and thus incur the fine.”

Phil was amazed. “People do that?”

“Of course,” she said. “Adventurers set off on dangerous voyages of all sorts, in hopes of bringing home a reward at the end of it to improve their own fortunes, and those of their families. If a few people die on the journey, so be it. If one comes from a poor family, five hundred or a thousand pieces of silver is a very large amount of money, perhaps enough to permanently change the family’s fortune for the better.”

“Do you think I gave too much then? To your former lovers, I mean.”

She thought about that for a good long time before answering, “In the first place, I wouldn’t call them ‘lovers,’ not exactly, they were just men I had sex with, primarily to spite my so-called ‘husband.’ In the second, I think that it was the perfect amount, because it was much more money than they had any right to expect, so they’d look like fools if they turned it down, and the Æsir hate looking like fools. They’re a dour sort, in general, and quick to quarrel, so turning down that much gold would have had people jeering at them for a hundred years or more and they’d spend the next hundred years fighting over one slur or another. They wouldn’t like that at all.”

“So what would you recommend to ensure that I don’t have people lined up to challenge me in hopes that I’ll kill them, if wishing to be dead can be called a ‘hope.’ ”

“If I were you, I’d hire Eiður Goðrúnarson — the Lögmaður who gave his judgement at your hearing — to be your advocate in any future quarrel, and let people know that you have him on retainer, since he’s widely known as being extremely learned in the law and as a very shrewd negotiator. He’s honest as well, which is always nice. There are limits to how far the law will go to protect fools from the results of their own actions, which is part of the reason why old Ásagrimmr wasn’t deemed worthy of any wergeld at all and — almost by definition — a relative non-entity without powerful relatives at hand who picks a fight with a skilled warrior who is surrounded by many powerful supporters is merely a fool. He was always more confident of his power than reality gave him reason to be. His own brothers cuckolded him without a thought, as far as I can see, which shows a certain contempt, I think, although — to be fair to their sense of loyalty — I'm somewhat difficult to resist.”

“I agree about Eiður,” Phil said, a little ill-at-ease with her casual attitude toward sexual encounters, despite her assurances. “He seemed very wise, and gave me his honest opinion, even when it wasn’t to his advantage.”

“That’s the sort of man he is. Your only remaining problem might be Þórr, since he’s a hothead and Ásagrimmr’s son, but Vili and Vé would be furious at him if he refused his share of their enormous compensation, because they’d have to give it back if he succeeded in killing you, so they’ll be working on him to keep him from flying off the handle, and might even threaten him with outlawry if their authority as the new heads of the family failed to move him to obey their edict. Even Þórr might well fear that, because he’s made many enemies over the years, who could then plot together to murder him with neither fear of reprisal nor judgement of wergeld to discourage them if they succeeded.”

“Remind me, please, to never get involved in local politics,” he said.

Gefjon laughed very prettily indeed. “Oh, but you are involved, and have made quite an impression. Taking out the old man with such dispatch has given you quite the reputation as a warrior — since he was a powerful warrior in his own right — and the fact that he was so desperate and unsure of himself after being easily bested by you in a physical confrontation that he resorted to foul seiðer in the midst of a large gathering just crowns your achievement with the stuff of legend.”

“But he was mostly trying to hurt you, not me…,” he protested.

“Shhhh!” She held her hand against his lips. “That’s certainly not the way my spies have spread the tale around, and I’d advise you to keep this bit of information to yourself. In the first place, no one will believe you, because even he couldn’t have afforded to pay my wergeld, which would have been multiplied enormously by his use of treacherous methods, but we have a sort of ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to avoid mentioning crimes against women, because they bring shame upon the perpetrator and his family, however common such crimes might be in ‘real life.’ In the ordinary course of events I’d probably have to have sex with both the brothers to smooth their ruffled feathers, but I find that I’d prefer not to do that after all, so you see how easily I’ve been swayed toward you and your strange lifestyle. Please don’t let me down by a tiresome insistence on literal truth, when poetic ‘license’ is much more appropriate and useful to our purpose.”

“Yeah, Phil,” Selene complained. “Don’t be such a pill. If our sister here has to have sex with anyone to keep your butt out of the fire, we’ll have to act in solidarity with her and do the same, to uphold the family honor.”

“I’m with them,” Rhea said simply, then closed her eyes and rolled over to embrace Selene and Gefjon with a sigh before she fell instantly to sleep again.

Phil just laid there staring at his wives, who’d all of them closed their eyes in sleep within seconds of each other, and were hogging all the blankets again, seemingly as happy as clams. His friend Eiður the Lögmaður was right, he thought. Being married was a full-time job, and he was still an amateur. “Dang!” he said, aggrieved, then tried to get back to sleep without much success at all.

“Wake up, Dear, it’s morning!” Rhea said cheerfully from somewhere above him, but he was so groggy that he couldn’t quite focus his eyes to see her.

“Whatever are you doing sleeping on the wet grass when you could have had a nice warm snuggle in bed?” she asked, evidently unconscious of any irony.

“I dunno,” he managed to say, resisting the urge to spit out the foul taste in his mouth, still trying to clear his head and make sense of his surroundings. “Where are Selene and Gefjon?” he asked, suddenly unsure about whether he wanted to know the answer to that question.

“Oh, out and about,” she said blithely. “We can’t spend all our days in bed, can we?” With that cryptic remark, she was out through the flap and gone.

Grumbling, he managed to haul himself to his knees, mobile enough to scrounge around and find a flask of water, which he used to rinse out his mouth before opening the flap of the tent and spitting out what was left onto the grass off to one side of the entrance. Yawning, he tried to look around the area outside, shielding his eyes against the glare of the morning sun, but couldn’t see any trace of them, neither Rhea nor Selene nor Gefjon.

‘First things first,’ he thought to himself, and gathered together a fresh shirt and the rest of his clothes, dressed as well as he could manage, and then ducked out the door with his water flask, one of the frayed twigs that passed for toothbrushes here, and a rag, heading toward a nearby copse of woods and underbrush to perform his morning ablutions and arrange his brain into some semblance of order.

It didn’t take long, although he regretted for the umpteenth time the lack of hot and cold running water. Of all the pleasures that living on modern Earth provided, a long hot shower was the one he missed the most. That and big terrycloth towels to dry off with after. Camping out here in the wilderness, or even sleeping in what were essentially rustic mountain cabins with no plumbing or central heating — however grand they were inside and out — had been fun for a while, and he could live with it even for the long term, because of the overriding importance of their mission, but it would sure be nice to show Gefjon the sort of luxury that Selene and Rhea had grown up with, and eventually return to the comfort of their mountain home on Earth.

“Hej! Husband! Are you done in there?” Gefjon was yelling to him from the edge of the woods, invisible from where he stood.

“I am,” he yelled back. “Just thinking for a minute before I walked back to camp. I’ll be right there.” Checking the ground around him carefully to be sure that he hadn’t left anything visible behind, he turned and pushed his way through the brush until he saw her waiting in the morning sun, the light behind her framing her face with a soft bright halo of golden tresses, her face in the partial shade of her own head, but still radiant with inner light. “I missed you all when I woke up, but surely deserved it. I can only offer my apology for failing to realize that what on Earth would be seen as ‘proper’ modesty has a different meaning here in your country. I promise to be guided by your superior level of experience and knowledge in the future, and try to be as boastful as the men in this land seem to be by nature.”

She smiled. “Please don’t try too very much, my sweet man, just enough to get by without other men taking you for a ‘wimp.’ Quite frankly, your unwavering kindness and concern for others is part of what makes me love you. Selene and Rhea have already explained your natural reticence to me as a habit formed on your ‘Earth,’ where the constant preening and cockiness of our local men would be seen as a sign of insecurity, a type of compensation for an inner weakness. I am persuaded by them that you’re a bold knight and true, but that in your traditions of chivalry a nobleman cares more for the comfort of his lady than his own, and places her life and safety above his own as well.”

“True.” He nodded. “That pretty much covers the basics of manly behavior in our world, but you’ve left off a gentleman’s most important duty toward his lady, which is to love her with all his heart.” He took her hand. “Shall we go find the others?”

She grinned. “We should, and it’s early yet, so I’m sure that it will be some time before we’re really ready to leave. I know you didn’t sleep at all well last night, so perhaps we should take a little nap before we unfold your clever little bridge and set off to see the Ljósálfar.”

“It might be a good idea,” he said, a little sourly, remembering why he hadn’t slept well, “and I can practice being overbearing and annoying, so you can critique my performance. I’m fairly sure that with enough practice I can as much of a jerk as any local man.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “See, you’re doing better already. Next time, try to pout a little….”

Now, he really felt aggrieved. “Look! I’m trying to….”

She interrupted him, mid-rant. “I know you are, but I’m quite a bit older than you are, with a wider experience of at least this world, and I doubt that men and women in your world are all that different from the people I’m familiar with. Without any hint of disrespect or lack of love, I’m afraid you have a tendency to be too nice, which is a lovely change from the average man in these parts, but not necessarily ideal. Women, most women, like a man to be a bit of a ‘bad boy;’ not too much, but enough to make him feel like a male to her, a delightful contrast to her own softer femininity, and to let her know that he’ll fight like a savage wolf to protect her and her cubs.”

“But Rhea and Selene do know that!” he shouted, angry with her, and with Rhea and Selene as well, for putting him in this stupid situation. “And you, for that matter. Whether I’d had that sword you gave me or not, I would have protected you, and I think you know it.”

“But would you protect me from myself, Sir Phil?” She raised an eyebrow. “If you knew that I was planning to do something foolish, would you do your very best to prevent me? Would you fight for me, even if I were angry? If I were so overcome with fury that I said something hateful, set off to do something rash, would you fight with me to keep what’s yours?” She challenged him with her haughty stare as well as with her words….

…and that was all it took. “Yes!” he roared and reached for her, clutching her close to his body as she molded herself to him, digging her nails into his back as he rained hungry kisses on her neck, her lips “You’re mine!” he whispered fiercely, almost bruising her lips with his own as he devoured her, marking her neck, the swelling of her breasts, with his fierce nibbles at her body, tasting her, reaching down to her shapely buttocks to pull her toward his need as he ground himself against her moistening core.

“Yes!” she cried, reaching desperately down to snatch her skirt out of the way as she spread her legs to accept his thrusts and he lifted her with effortless strength and slammed her back against a tree, pulling up his kilt to free his manhood as he plunged himself inside her, taking her, owning her, forcing her to submit to his superior strength as she began to scream, “Yes! Yes! Take me! My stallion! My love! Oh, oh, oh, oh, unh!” and then she came and came again, screaming wordlessly, as he erupted inside her.

Heart pounding, chest heaving as he labored to catch his breath, he held her close until the tension left her body and she almost collapsed into his arms. Then he crooned to her, cradling her body in his arms, petting her hair, kissing her lightly on the eyelids with exquisitely gentle kisses. “Be still, my darling girl, be calm. All is well, and you’re held safe within my arms, your heart's desires my own, and your person mine always to defend.”

She stirred, then looked up into his eyes, and said with lazy lethargy and hooded lids, “That was very nice, Phil, a perfect mix of ruthless masculinity and tender concern.”

“I aim to please.” he said simply.

“And your aim is improving,” she said seductively. “Remind me to be naughty again very, very soon.”

“Somehow,” he said with gentle irony, “I suspect that you’ll manage to provoke my lust whether I remind you to do so or not, don’t you think?”

She smiled a cryptic smile. “I might. I might not. It all depends.”

“Depends of what?” he asked.

“On how well you keep me in line,” she said softly. “Some girls are just born bad….”

“And some have badness thrust upon them,” he said roughly, pulling her against him again, reaching down and under her already disheveled skirts to firmly cradle her center in his palm, using his thumb and fingers to stroke her into madness with sure skill, using just the right combination of gentleness and pressure to arouse her into a frenzy of wanting him inside her, but he made no move to take her properly, teasing her with her own hunger for him, molding her into his woman, only his, until she came helplessly for him, surrendering her will to his, and “Please!” was all she said, over and over again, “Please…!” until he finally relented and lifted her leg, then plunged his hardness into her molten core. She came instantly, and it was better than before, much better, and she came shuddering until she could no longer stand, her limbs like water as she fell into his arms.

“I hope,” he said, as he hefted her into his arms and carried her back toward their tent, “that this teaches you a valuable lesson, young lady.” At the entrance, he didn’t pause, but merely shifted his grip so he held her with one hand wrapped around her, cradling her buttocks in the palm of his hand, taking her entire weight easily as he lifted the tentflap and lowered her to their rough mattress, where Rhea and Selene lay resting, both looking up at him in amusement.

“I believe,” drawled Selene, “that I might like a little of what she’s been having.”

“I think I’ll have that too,” Rhea added, “so I hope we have enough to go around.”

“Ladies,” he said, “as I mentioned before, my strength….”

“…is the strength of ten,” they all three said in chorus….

“…because my heart is pure,” he acknowledged graciously.

After their ‘nap,’ during which Phil didn’t manage to sleep at all, they discovered that they couldn’t leave that afternoon in any case, because the Empress D’Larona-Elvi came to him with a strange request; to wit, she wanted to divorce the Emperor and marry Phil, which she commanded him to do forthwith, as his lawful sovereign. She graciously acknowledged that he was free to keep his other wives, since the safety of their mission depended on it.

They were outside their tent at the time, taking their leisure in the warmish noonday sun, which was high in the sky but not directly overhead because of whatever passed for latitude in this crazy world. “But…,” said Phil….

…only to be cut off by Gefjon, who said, “Of course you must be married, my dear friend Larona. In times of scarcity, we must all needs share and share alike.”

Oddly enough, neither Selene nor Rhea made any objection, but merely smiled at her. Rhea even winked, as if to say that she sympathized with her plight, a woman on a long journey from which she might very well never return, without the solace of a husband to keep her warm at night.

Phil didn’t know exactly what to say, nor exactly how he’d been able to read so much into her wink, so Akcuanrut was summoned to hear the official declaration of divorcement made by the Empress.

When the wizard arrived, however, he came across the grassy meadow accompanied by two of Queen Gefjon’s daughters, Hnoss, a comely blonde, and Gersemi a beautiful brunette, who were draped around his chubby neck like feather boas, both rubbing his tummy ‘for good luck,’ as they proudly announced. The portly man looked mortified, and somewhat frightened, but he was smiling at the same time — albeit a little dazed — and ‘The Twins,’ as their mother promptly introduced them to one and all, followed up their puzzling pronouncement with another, “We’re getting married! Isn’t he cute? We think he’s just too, too adorable! Is Menglöð here yet?”

Their mother answered, “Not yet; but she’s coming, or soon will be, I suspect,” at which all the women laughed, for some reason.

“Who’s Menglöð?” Phil asked.

“My other daughter, by Ullir, as it happens, but you haven’t met him. He wandered off quite some time ago, and I have no idea where he went, but that’s men for you,” she said flippantly, “here one day and then gone the next.”

Phil was a little confused. “But if Hnoss and Gersemi are twins, where’s your other daughter? I thought you had just three, but then you said that they all had different fathers.”

Heedless of the fact that they had a curious audience that seemed to be growing as people and centaurs trickled in from other portions of the camp, she answered, “Hnoss and Gersemi here are twins,” she explained patiently, as one might speak to a child, “because they were both conceived on the very same night, and born one right after the next, of course, but they do have different sires, as almost anyone can see. Vili and Vé are the fathers, in fact, so you’ll be able to meet them at the weddings.”

“Oh,” he said, suddenly realizing exactly how ‘adventurous’ his new wife had been, and exactly how uncomfortable he was discussing this before an audience, but then… “They’re coming here?” he asked, alarmed.

“Of course.” She was slightly taken aback by his seeming timidity and frowned slightly. “You wouldn’t want to be rude to your new brothers-in-law, would you? It wouldn’t be good politics, considering that you’ve just killed their brother.”

“Unh, no, I guess not….”

“Oh, good. You’ll have to take special care to watch out for them at the wedding feast, though, because they may start to feel a little… frisky… once they’ve had a horn or two of ale.”

“What do you mean, exactly, by ‘frisky?’ ” he asked, his brows deeply furrowed.

“I mean that they’ll be chasing after anything in skirts, of course, and that they’re not too picky. I wouldn’t trust either of them around any wife of mine, of course, but then I don’t have that particular problem.”

“And what problems might you have?” he asked suspiciously.

“Well,” she admitted, “I do have a soft spot in my heart for the fathers of my children, however distasteful they may be to me on a purely personal level. But you know how men are, of course; once they’ve sipped from the well, they often feel quite free to drink deeply again, whether the woman involved is willing or not, and of course they’ll probably be a little jealous too — aside from their natural distaste for the man who’s bedded their former lover and murdered their brother — and so may seek to ‘even the score’ a little by taking a little sip from one of your wells.”

Phil was beginning to feel like he was being played for a sucker, even more conscious of their audience,especially Akcuanrut, who might as well have been taking notes, so rapt was he in this particular matrimonial interaction. “This sounds like it’s being set up as a repeat of the unfortunate ‘incident’ with your ex-husband.”

“That’s where diplomacy comes in, Sweetheart.” She looked a little exasperated. “Do I have to spell all this out for you? I know how I’d do it with my women friends, of course, I’d have everyone over for a nice talk and we’d chat about things for a while and eventually come together in a sort of tacit understanding that didn’t actually hurt anyone’s feelings, or at least not too terribly much, and then we’d hug and kiss and nearly everyone would go home happy. I have the impression that men don’t operate that way, but don’t ask me to explain them to you, because I simply don’t know.”

“Believe me,” Phil said, “in my limited experience on Earth, I don’t believe that I’ve ever encountered a situation in which men stand around and ‘chat’ about sexual intrigue, murderous assault, and bloody revenge with all the sangfroid of the latest weather report, other than as mere tales told about people far removed from their daily lives.”

“Have you no leaders among your people then?” she asked. “Are there none who deal with affairs of state? I find this difficult to believe. We’re talking about people — including myself and the Empress here — who are numbered among the rulers and/or creators of entire worlds; do you suppose that you can mingle with them intimately without becoming involved with their areas of authority and conflict? You yourself have set off to murder Surtr and countless of his relatives and acquaintances; do you imagine that you can do this without taking lives?” She looked skeptical in the extreme.

“Well, I hadn’t quite got around to visualizing the actual encounter, in which I’m at fault, I think.”

“Probably. You’re young to be a war leader, but it’s almost always the young who march off to war. In that you’re not exceptional at all. And sooner or later you’re going to make grave decisions about life and death. Can this particular foe — now seemingly repentant and desperately anxious to survive — be trusted to keep his word? You’ve had several recent opportunities to observe that deceit and treachery can be involved in any interaction, and acted quickly and decisively in at least one to avoid being caught up in it yourself, and to protect those whose safety depended on you. Most importantly, though, can you bear to risk the lives of people you love and respect in separate encounters in which you have no possibility of intervening, trusting them to either succeed or fail on their own? ”

“So I’m coming to understand,” he said, his expression very grave.

“Then remember: The Sons of Muspell are the eldest of all, and not human in any sense, much less humane. They have no more regard for human lives — nor even those of the Æsir and the Vanes — than you might be concerned for insects. As a naughty boy might step on a grasshopper for his own amusement, just to hear the little ‘pop’ as its shell exploded, or pour water on an ants nest, taking a malicious delight in the sight of them scurrying around trying to save their eggs and Queen, so the Fire Jötunns delight in any death or suffering, unless it is their own.”

“We’ve seen their work,” Phil said, “and many of the women here with us were the victims of their malice at second hand, through a baleful object we know as ‘The Heart of Virtue,’ which seems inimical in its own right, and needs no external direction.”

She smiled, a little wan, “Like your sword Brenðr, for example, although it has a higher purpose, having been dwarf-forged at great cost specifically to turn the tide in the final battle. The Goddess Sinmœra, Surtr’s sometime companion, is rumored to have crafted a deadly weapon named Hævateinn, which she supposedly keeps locked in an iron chest with nine strong locks upon it, which will be opened at the ending of the world, to the world’s ruin.”

Phil looked down at his sword, which had trembled, whether in eagerness or loathing, at the mention of Sinmœra’s weapon. “Nine locks…. It seems a curious coïncidence that this number reflects the number of your worlds.”

“Perhaps not purely a coïncidence, Husband; this weapon was forged by Sinmœra herself at the very gates of Hel, which lies very near the roots of Yggdrasil, the foundation of all the worlds.”

“Is there anything that’s actually known about it, other than its mere existence?” The wizard was very interested in this as well, but refrained from comment.

“Other than the name, no,” she said, “and no one knows what the name actually means, other than, perhaps, Sinmœra herself, only that it’s predicted to drive all before it during the Ragnarök. Some say that it’s a fiery sword, while some believe that it’s a flail or whip of fire, but no one knows why it doesn’t burn, or even if any of these words, ‘fire,’ ‘sword,’ ‘whip,’ are reasonable terms to describe whatever it is that Hævateinn is.”

Phil had a sudden vision of the ancient centaur’s carved stone tableau that showed dwarves holding up the Heart while the centaurs fled in panic. “I think that our ‘Heart of Virtue’ and your ‘Hævateinn’ are one and the same,” he said, suddenly very sure. “In the Temple, or Palace, of the ancient centaurs, there’s a sculpted battle scene which depicts centaurs, dwarves, and giants fighting, although neither dwarves nor giants appear to be native to that world. In that battle, a group of dwarves were holding up what appears to be the ‘Heart,’ and the centaurs were all running away from it, which perfectly fits your description of its effects.”

“Perhaps it’s another weapon entirely,” Gefjon said. “How could Hævateinn have been transported from Hel’s Gates to another world entirely?”

“Perhaps,” Phil agreed, “but there’s a kind of rule of thumb called ‘parsimony’ on my world, which says roughly that the simplest solution that fits all the facts is probably the best working hypothesis. We have incontrovertible evidence of people from these worlds in one of ours, wielding a weapon which appears to be capable of exactly the effects that you describe, and the means by which it does this are terrible, since it dissolves the flesh and bone of its victims and then reanimates them as undead slaves to its own purpose. We also know that a recent attack was made on us as we were transporting the Heart to a place of safekeeping by a known group of dwarves from Svartálfheimr, whom King Alvís identified as Dáinn and Náinn, together with their people. I think we can assume from this that a portal exists here that allowed these Dvergar to travel there, possibly through Niflheimr, the world of the Nine Worlds closest to the root of Yggdrasil, as I understand it. That would explain how giants and dwarves from these worlds were able to attack the ancient centaurs, and how your ‘Hævateinn’ may have been transported to Myriad.”

“But what about the iron chest and locks?”

“Possibly a metaphor…? I don’t exactly know, but it makes some sort of cryptic sense that the Nine Worlds themselves could be described as the ‘locks’ that prevent access to the hidden entrance to Akcuanrut’s world, the so-called ‘chest’ in which the magic weapon is kept. It was, in fact, hidden ‘safely’ away for thousands of years, exactly how long I don’t know, other than the fact that many of the artifacts in the Temple had turned to dust, or nearly so, since last the centaurs had inhabited it. I understand that your poets are very much fascinated by elaborate ‘kennings’ to describe commonplace objects in clever ways that reference other famous stories or poems.”

“That’s true,” she said. “Wordplay and oratory are much admired by all, and challenging one’s audience to remember other famous stories that have some relation to your own is an important part of every performance, since those who remember the story will be amused by the puzzled looks of those who don’t, and everyone will be pleased by a skald who manages to reference many stories in the course of telling one.” She paused for a moment, thinking, then added, “Of course, it’s also a sort of self-advertisement, because he’s also claiming to know all those stories well enough to reference them spontaneously, and would thus be a good fellow to invite to the next feast.”

Phil smiled, since words were his other stock-in-trade. “In our world, we do the same, and so-called ‘literary references’ have formed a portion of our major works of art from time immemorial, and of course our language is partially-descended from your own, so our word arts have a direct relationship to the skaldic traditions you maintain in their purest form.”

“This claim is still incredible to me,” Gefjon said, “although you clearly believe it. If you already know our past, how does this differ from our own concept of Fate?”

“In the first place, we know very little, since in our world the practitioners of a foreign religion did their very best to obliterate or disguise all references to the Gods and Goddesses of the Nine Worlds. In the second, our future and yours obviously join together right about now, so the flow of time seems to have split apart between our two worlds, much as a river might take two paths down a shallow valley, and then come together again further downstream. On one branch of this imaginary river, the stream spread out and meandered, running lazily across a shallow plain, while on the other, it plunged down in a rapid torrent, only to meet its ‘other half’ somewhere down the larger valley.”

“You did mention,” she said, still puzzled, “that half a year had passed on your world while you dallied in the world of the Empress for only a few months, but it still seems impossible.”

“It’s a difficult puzzle,” Phil admitted, “and our ‘scientists,’ — what you might call either spækonas or artisans in metals and other things — are still arguing about the details, last I heard, but as a partial corroboration of my claim, we have a word ‘scold,’ — pronounced by combining ess, kay, oh, ell, duh — which is directly related to your word ‘skald,’ and refers to ‘flyting,’ a contest of insults which I understand is much admired in your worlds. We have another word ‘scald,’ which is pronounced in almost exactly the same manner, but with an ‘ah’ sound in place of the ‘oh’ sound, which means roughly ‘to burn someone’s flesh,’ and probably refers to the blush that a telling insult might bring to one’s face.”

Gefjon had just started to say something when she was interrupted by an angry male voice that seemed to come from nowhere, “Enough of these foolish blatherings! This whore who stands before us spreads her legs for any man! I mys….” the voice was suddenly cut off by a heavy grunt….

…as Rhea and Selene both hurled a dozen knives each into the empty air….

…which caused that curious vacancy, now decorated by the hilts of exactly two dozen knives seemingly suspended in mid-air, to topple to the ground, whereupon….

…both women snatched what seemed to have been a cloak, now tattered and bloodstained, from a wiry and muscular redheaded man who was writhing on the ground and trying to speak.

“Loki!” Gefjon cried. “We are undone through treachery!”

“Not hardly,” Phil said calmly, his hand already on his sword, which handily lopped off the said Loki’s head for him just as he’d begun to speak some sinister words of seiðer in an effort either to murder someone or escape.

As the villain’s head toppled haphazardly to the grassy area beneath the body, Phil added, “I think it’s safe to say, though, that the Dark Gods — whoever they may be — are aware of our presence, and undoubtedly our purpose, but that’s never been all that much of a secret.”

“Isn’t he just dreamy?” Selene and Rhea asked rhetorically in chorus, smiling broadly.

Akcuanrut and the Empress D’Larona-Elvi merely looked alarmed.

Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeffrey M. Mahr — All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 Levanah Greene — All Rights Reserved