Martell and Harry found the farmhouse empty but unlocked. "Tonight's lesson, unlawful entry," said Harry, and he pushed the surprisingly heavy storm door open and led the way inside.
They entered a squarish "mud porch" built into an angle in the house's structure. One set of steps led up to the kitchen, another down to the basement. They went up into the kitchen, through a heavy steel door.
The place reeked of incense and mold.
Apparently the Way of the Old Wisdom hadn't yet worked out the logistics of communal housekeeping. The place was a chaos. Crusty dishes sat in the sink and on the counters. Pots and pans nested inside one another, all unwashed, on the range. In one corner an ancient Frigidaire vibrated. Someone had set a stainless steel thermos bottle on top of it, and the cylinder had walked itself close to the edge. Harry limped over and took it down, setting it on the floor to one side. "That's a good bottle," he said. "Hate to see it cracked."
Martell made the circle of sun porch, living room, dining room and back to the kitchen. "Look at this place," he said. "It's like a fortress. The doors are steel. They've put up steel shutters on the inside of all the windows. And these little framed mottos on the walls they cover loopholes for shooting from. They must be expecting a siege."
"Very prescient of them," said Harry, limping around into the living room. He switched on an expensive stereo system and pushed the PLAY button on the cassette deck. A rhythmical chanting hummed from the speakers, not professional quality.
"They must have taped their ritual music," he said, and hit the OFF button.
"I don't suppose we could just stay here and wait for them," said Martell.
"No, I think we'll have to go out and look for them. Down in Troll Valley, I suppose that's where the fellow said they held their ceremonies. I hope I can make it. My leg's hurting me a bit."
There was a knock at the door, and they looked at each other. Martell went to answer it. Harry followed as far as the kitchen and sank into a chair.
Minna Gunderson was there, shivering in an overcoat over her bathrobe and nightgown, slippers on her feet. Her face shone.
"What are you doing here?" Martell asked, but she pushed past him.
"Harry!" she cried, rushing up into the kitchen. "The most wonderful thing has happened!
"But first wait first I have to give you my message. The message first. The people from the meeting are coming. They're coming sooner than you thought, and there's more of them than you thought."
"Are Stoney and Maxie all right?" asked the pastor.
"Maxie's fine. Stoney took a crack on the head or something, and Maxie's taken him to the hospital. I tried to call here, but do you know they haven't got a telephone?"
Harry asked, "How did you get here? I took the car."
She beamed. "I flew, Harry! Believe it or not, I flew!"
"Flew?"
"Just like the prophet Ezekiel! One moment I was in my room, the next I was in the air! I went to a place it was full of light, Harry, and there was music, and there were two old men. They were doing I know this sounds crazy but they were on a stage, doing a what's it called? a vaudeville routine. They wore striped coats and straw boater hats, and they were dancing a soft-shoe and juggling. They looked familiar to me, but I couldn't place them at first. Then I recognized them from the pictures in church. They were Oskar Frette and Haldor Bendikson, the men who founded Christiania!"
"Dancing? Frette and Bendikson?"
"That was my reaction. They started talking to me, and they said that this was their discipline they wanted to be very clear that it was different from Purgatory, they don't believe in Purgatory at all, but the Lord had told them that it would be good for them to learn something frivolous. They said the hardest thing about Heaven for them was how much fun it was. They'd never learned to have fun on earth, and that left them unprepared for eternity."
"Minna "
"I know I know it's forbidden to contact the dead. But there's one time when we all have to contact the dead."
"You mean "
"Yes, I'm dying, Harry. It's all right. I'm not upset about it. But I have to tell you what Frette and Bendikson said.
"They were sort of cute Bendikson did the talking, like everyone says he did when they were alive. But Frette kept interrupting him and correcting him. So the whole thing took about twice the time it should have, though by my watch the whole thing didn't take more than a couple of minutes, and all the time they were going through their routine. They were very good, too.
"They said they were well, in essence they were closing down the franchise. Or rather God is. Christiania College, and Nidaros church, have moved so far from the things they were built for that the anointing is being taken away.
"There's going to be a kind of shaking out. Some people are being removed from the situation, partly as judgment and partly to spare them what's coming, you and me among them "
"Me?"
"Does that really bother you?"
"No, I guess not, but "
"Harry, I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is! It's what I've been waiting for all my life. I don't mind anything now not losing Wesley, not the lonely years, not the children I missed. It's all right. I'ts it's very well. Harry, I rose up on wings as of eagles!"
Harry hugged her. She felt as alive as ever.
She pulled away, wiped her face with her sleeve and said, "I have a message for you too, Carl Martell. From Frette and Bendikson. They said you have to go down into Troll Valley, and quickly. Don't worry about finding the way. There's a thing that needs to be done, and only you can do it. And you have to do it alone. Harry won't be able to keep up."
Martell looked at them. He didn't doubt her story. "Oski's there," he said. "Do you know who Oski is?"
"I think he's Odin," Harry said.
"Am I a man to defy the gods?"
"There's only one God, Carl, and you've made your choice about Him. You'll have to see the thing through."
Martell nodded, looked away. "The logic of the story," he said. "A Noble Death."
"Perhaps. But I've found that God is rarely so predictable. He's a better artist than that."
Minna said, "You know, Carl Martell, there's a sin called Despair."
Martell said, "I know. I've always expected, somehow, that the truth of things would be unbearable."
"It isn't for those who bear it," said Minna.
Martell turned to the door. "We'll see. Will you two be all right? I guess that's a pointless question. Is this goodbye?"
"For now," said Minna.
"You've been good friends," said Carl. "I'll miss you."
They broke through their Norwegian reserve, smiled and hugged one another in turn.
"I don't like to think of leaving you to that mob," said Carl.
"We'll close these shutters up," said Harry. "Maybe we can persuade them the young people are in here, and give you time while we negotiate."
"And if you can't negotiate?"
"I'm a preacher. I'll bore them to death."
Martell smiled.
Harry reached out and put a hand on Martell's shoulder. "Carl," he asked, "do you sincerely repent of your sins?"
Martell looked in his eyes. He nodded. "Yes I do. With all my heart."
"The Almighty and merciful God grant unto you, being penitent, pardon and remission of all your sins, time for amendment of life, and the grace and comfort of His Holy Spirit."
Martell took a deep breath. "Thanks," he said. "God bless you. You know, I don't think I've ever said that before." He went out.
Minna sat across the table from Harry. "We have a lot to talk about," she said, "and not much time."
Martell went out of the house and stood, shuddering, in the wind. He wished he'd worn a hat. The promised snow blew about him, damping all sound but the whistling in his ears. It was dark as only country dark can be, like velvet, the only light a faint glow through the clouds and the distant flares of farmers' blue yardlights.
"We who are about to die salute you," he whispered, and made the sign of the cross, another novelty. Only a Christian a short time, he hadn't decided whether he was high or low church. A bird swooped down, flapping near enough to startle him, and buffeted off.
There seemed to be a sort of gleam under the willow trees to the northwest, beyond the old chicken coop, on the way to Troll Valley. It would do for a beacon.
He walked to it and became aware, as he approached, of the figure of a man, outlined in swirling snow and lit from within. The flakes moved continually, but the man-shape was constant, like a glass statue full of fireflies. Only this statue moved.
A moment later Martell found himself on his face in the snow. He'd read Biblical accounts where people who saw angels collapsed in fear. He'd never understood why until now. It was as if he'd had the chance to view history as it happened, and to compare it to his own articles, discovering for the first time all the ways he'd been wrong. The very existence of this being made the ground beneath his feet unstable. Its height denounced his values. The set of its shoulders was a reproach to his character. If this was an angel, a messenger of God, then almost nothing he had ever valued or counted on was of any moment. He'd paid out the budgeted coin of his life for gimcrackeries. No wonder prophets had responded to theophanies by abasing their bodies and wailing over their sins.
"Get up," said the angel. "I am only your fellow creature. Let's not waste time."
Martell rose by way of his knees. "What should I do?" he asked.
"Follow me. You must get your sword."
"My sword?"
"Follow." The angel turned to walk westward, and Martell came after. He left footprints; the angel did not. "There was a sword forged to slay Odin," the angel said. "Three men, of whom you have heard, carried it. They did not understand its use, or understood too little. But the last of them passed it on."
"To whom?"
"To you."
"To me? I don't have a sword."
"A comet runs above us," said the angel. "A comet is one of the many things men know less of than they think. The ring of the comet's journey is a kind of loop in time, and if we are in the appointed place in a few minutes, we will cross the past. No hurry."
"Can I ask why me?"
"Why does a tree bear fruit? You talk so much of freedom can't you see that the only freedom worth the name is the freedom to do what one is made for?
"The sword is yours because you are a sword. From childhood you have been forged hot and hammered hard. Once you were broken. Lately you have been made true."
"I see I cannot tell a lie."
"The sword that slays Odin must be the truest in the world. As legends say, it was broken and must be reforged. When the pieces come together, there will be a true sword. Truer even than its maker intended."
They made their way westward through the willow grove, walking parallel to the fence that fronted Troll Valley, and passed through an open field gate. Martell tripped in a gopher hole, falling face forward in the snowy grass. He felt the stitches open in his right hand. The bandage was wet and bloody. He pulled it off and threw it away. The angel turned back to him and said, "Come now."
"Is everybody a sword?" Martell asked, feeling fire in his hand.
"What a dull creation that would be."
"What's Harry Gunderson?"
"What is that you you? Follow me."
They went on a few more yards through the grass.
"Stop now," said the angel. "This is the place."
They stood about twenty feet from the fence row, old wooden posts with glass insulators strung with smooth electric wire, barbed wire tacked on below. The snow fell on wide fields all around, glowing in waves as the moonlight came and went. The roiling sky seemed suddenly to loom large in Martell's sight, the angel anchored at its base.
"It is time," the angel said.
The snowflakes that defined him stopped suddenly. Looking around, Martell saw that all the snowflakes had stopped, as if caught in a photograph. He put out a finger and touched one. It went where he pushed it and stayed there.
Then there were voices and shouting, and he turned to the fence, but there was no fence. Instead he saw a mass of men, facing each other in uneven rows. The men struck at one another with swords and axes and spears. They wore tunics and hose, and hooded cloaks of a thick, shaggy gray material Martell recognized as Iceland wadmal.
He shouldered his way through the snowflakes to the fighters. When he was nearer the snowflakes disappeared, and he knew there had been no snow that night in 1362.
This night.
His line of sight was along one end of the battle line. To his left, at the rear of the better dressed force, one man in monk's garb carved fiercely at a gray stone with a hammer and chisel.
The man closest Martell in that line feinted with his sword, dodged a blow and cut down his man. Another enemy, a tall man in ragged leather with a long gray beard, rushed in to attack him, wielding a long spear.
The defender lifted his sword, then seemed to pause. He looked around him, ignoring the graybeard.
His eyes fell on Martell. They were blue eyes, and Martell felt a stab of pity for a man dying, 600 years gone.
Pale-faced, the man threw his sword to Martell.
Martell caught it one-handed.
Screaming, the gray-beard struck the unarmed man down. He roared and turned to face Martell, spear poised.
He had one eye.
Instead of casting at Martell, the gray-beard raised his face to heaven and bellowed. The earth shook and the stars dimmed.
The gray-beard swung his spear back over his shoulder and threw it skyward. Following its flight with his eyes, Martell saw, fierce and clear among the stars, Cerafsky's Comet.
Then there was snow on his face, and the battle was gone, but he had the sword.
He looked on the weapon and loved it. It was a perfect Viking blade, shining pale in the moonlight. Runes were carved along its center groove, and the silver-chased grip with its short, curved guard and cocked-hat pommel fit his hand perfectly.
Too perfectly.
He turned to the angel. "I can't let go!" he said. "It's as if as if it's burned to my hand!"
"It is welded, at the place where it met your blood. It is the nature of metal to wed its like."
"I heard that once." Martell took a deep breath. "That's it then. I can't live this way. I must die tonight."
"Feel the sword, Carl Martell! If you must die, can you be sorry, regaining the limb you've always missed?"
Martell looked at the blade again, and seemed to feel his blood pulsing down its bright length.
"It's alive," he said. "It's a part of me."
"Follow me," said the angel.
He led Martell back the way they had come, to a place where there was a gate in the fence, and a path leading down into Troll Valley.
The angel said, "Now is the time for you to do the work you were forged to do. I am permitted to tell you this there is only one proper use for a sword. The others missed it."
"A riddle," said Martell. "That's all that was missing. Will you come along?"
"There is no need. The sword will find the gelding."
"It's dark down there. I'm frightened."
The angel's face hadn't the definition to show emotion, but Martell felt his pity a heavy, exquisite thing like a jewel flower. "It must be very hard," the angel said, "to will a thing without wanting it."
"Almost beyond bearing."
"Your life is not what you think. You suffer such loneliness, yet it is always an illusion. You mistake your shame, and you mistake your glory. You make such tales, you men!" The snow went random.
Martell started down the path, under the trees, his heart pounding. He had no trouble finding his way. The sword tugged at his arm like a dog on a leash. The snow fell more gently among the trees, the flakes descending like the wreck of a pillow.
He grew aware of a glowing that brightened through the trees and brush as he descended. Moving closer, he saw a crowd of young people in a ring around a stone altar, in a wide place along the river bank. The wind whipped at the fire on the altar and strewed sparks about an ash tree that overhung it, and about Sigfod Oski, clad in a brown robe and holding a spear, and about Elaine, also robed. A rope was around her neck, hanging slack, looped over a branch of the ash. Her arms were bound behind her.
"Carl Martell!" Oski shouted. "From time's morning it was carven that you would come to this place on this night with that sword is it not a joy to find one's destiny?"
Pastor Gunderson sat alone in the Tysness house, on a sofa in the living room. He had worked his slow way around, closing the heavy shutters and bolting them. Minna had gone as she had come. He had switched on a light, and felt strangely cozy.
Now he was watching old Jack Tysness pottering about the place, heavy-handed and sour-faced. He knew Jack was dead. He did not believe in ghosts, but he let the apparition be. The bands of time seemed loosely fastened tonight.
For a moment he saw his Joanna. She stood facing him, wearing a dress he remembered, and she smiled. He smiled back.
Someone knocked at the porch door. He sighed and got up. He switched on the stereo, and sounds of chanting filled the house.
He stumped across the kitchen linoleum, saying, "I'm coming, I'm coming." He closed the kitchen door and went down the steps. He opened the storm door and saw Solar Bull's face through the screen. Out in the yard were cars with men in them. He opened the screen door.
"They're here?" Solar Bull asked. "They haven't left for the ceremony yet?"
"That's their singing."
"You a hostage?"
"No. I'm their protector."
"You're standing with the Devil's children against God?"
"The Devil has no children. All children are God's. If they reject Him, I'm sorry. But I won't reject them."
"We can come in there and bring you out, Reverend."
"Perhaps. But you've lived here. You know the security built into this house. Do you think you'd get out of this porch alive?"
Solar Bull looked uneasily up at the loopholes.
"I'd rather have you with us than against us, Reverend," he said. "You serve the Church. All right, so do we. Some of us here belong to an order more than a thousand years old. They aren't mentioned in any history book, but whenever there was danger, whenever quick money was needed, whenever somebody had to be got out of the way, these guys have been there. They do the ugly work so you preachers can keep your hands clean. If there are still prophets, this is where you'll find them. Today, their task is to burn this house. 'Thus saith the Lord'! 'Choose ye this day,' Pastor!"
Harry boomed, "All right!. Let's see who's a prophet! You think you can glorify God by burning this house and killing these children?"
"If we have to. Unless the witches come out and surrender to the justice of God."
"Then listen to me I will stay in this house, and if you want to burn it you'll have to burn me too. That's my word from the Lord, and I'll put my body through the flame to confirm it. Will you do the same?"
Solar Bull stared. "You're crazy!"
"Are you afraid?"
Solar Bull grabbed Harry's left arm and pulled.
Harry took hold of Solar Bull's wrist with his right hand and easily pulled it loose. He squeezed the wrist, his face showing no strain. Solar Bull's face went white, and he gasped three times.
Harry let him go, and Solar Bull lurched away, letting the screen door slam behind him. He ran hunched over, one hand cradling the other.
"Our strength," Harry whispered, "always surprises them." He saw Solar Bull rush to one of the waiting cars. There were four of them, and three or four men and women got out of each. They opened the trunks and brought out red gasoline containers.
Solar Bull shouted, "You think we won't do it, Preacher, but we will!"
Harry closed the storm door and bolted it.
He labored up to the kitchen and picked up the thermos bottle he'd moved earlier. He unscrewed the cap and found it clean and dry inside. He carried it to the table, sat down, and went through his pockets for a piece of paper. He found an old grocery list and unfolded it, turning the blank back up.
To be sure of himself, he unstrapped his artificial leg and tossed it across the room. Then he uncapped a fountain pen and began to write.
"Is it not a joy to find one's destiny?" Sigfod Oski cried.
Something like a pile of rags moved near Oski's feet. It rose to become a woman who struggled up, and Martell recognized Pastor Hardanger-Hansen. She was scratched and bruised and bleeding, and she ran hunched over, clutching her torn robe. She stumbled forward and crouched a few feet below Martell, shivering and sobbing. "Help me help me"
Then she convulsed to her feet and ran around him, away up the path and into the darkness.
"What did you do to her?" Martell cried.
"I raped her, of course. Then I gave her to the congregation. She was keen to learn the history of religion, and I thought the lesson should be a comprehensive one."
"You egregious bastard," said Martell. "How dare you be Odin? How dare you make Odin contemptible?"
"It appears you need a history lesson yourself, Martell. You at least should know better, but then Hell hath no fury like a Romantic disillusioned."
"Let Elaine go."
"I intend to. But for now we'll keep her as she is, as an incentive to you."
Martell felt the presence of a lie, more palpable than any he had ever felt before, though he could not isolate it. And in his belly he felt the fear he had lived with so many years. But the fear had changed, as if a cog that had been rattling loose in a machine had suddenly fallen into place and begun to do its proper work.
"Do you feel your fear?" cried Oski, reading his thoughts. "Do you know its name? Its name is Anger! All these years the thing you've feared most has been your own power! Set it free, Martell you shall be as the gods!"
"What do you want from me?"
"Do you know how gods are made, Martell? You've read the Hávamál
"I know that I swung on the wind-swept tree
Nine long nights together,
Spear-wounded, a sacrifice to Odin,
My self to self devoted.
"It's true!
"I was a chieftain then, patriarch of a tribe of nomads in the Caucasus. We practiced the old custom of kingship when the king's ring of years had closed, he was sacrificed for the health of the land. I remember little of that life now, but I can't forget the fear as they stabbed me with the spear and hoisted me, bleeding. But dying I found the magic, and I struck the bargain by which gods are made.
"I reigned as a god many hundred years. I drank deep of the blood of sacrifice, I established law, I gave men the mystery of the runes, and other secrets. Until at last the White Christ pushed me back into my northern fastnesses. Then my last kings began to turn on me. Haakon the Good. Harald Bluetooth. Olaf Trygvesson. How I mourned my Olaf!
"My power failed as the sacrifices ebbed. I knew a way to renew it though. The power is in the blood, Martell, and the greatest sacrifices yield the greatest power!"
"Human sacrifices?" asked Martell.
"Divine sacrifices! Do you think me some petty imp, Martell? Do you think I'd accept the deaths of slaves and prisoners, and not my own death?
"I came to Olaf Trygvesson in my Wanderer's guise, thus " A sort of veil fell over Martell's sight. A light shone for an instant on a bearded old man in hat and cloak, with a heavy staff. Then darkness again, and the fire, and Oski.
"I told him which was true that I could forge a weapon to slay Odin. I did not tell him that in taking a human body and dying in it, I would be reborn to godhead. I had found a man to possess, nor was he unwilling. A man will die for power.
"Olaf gave me a smithy to work in. I thought a sword the proper weapon, for Olaf favored them. I forged it you hold it now. If you knew the words I spoke over it and the bath in which I tempered it, it would crack your mind.
"I gave Olaf the sword, and made my plans to meet him in battle, but the fool made his mad trip to Wendland and let the Danes trap him, and drowned himself. So I hid the sword and waited for another man of the same forgeing, for not every man can wield that weapon.
"Then came the second Olaf. It was a task to get near him because of his priests, and I had much business with my own worshippers, but at last I reached him and offered the sword, and he took it eagerly enough. But the farmers drove him to Russia, and there he prayed, and was warned against it. He gave it to one of his men and bade him throw it in a lake, and went off to die at Stiklestad. The man, being no fool, hid the sword instead, but he too was killed, and not even I knew its hiding place.
"By then my power was bled so thin I could do little but cling to the body I wore, and trade it for another when it wore out. I wandered and waited with the years, and made a new plan. I turned my thoughts on the western land the Greenlanders had found. I thought that if I could set people of my own in Vinland, and endure the rite of rebirth among them, I could thrive among the many gods and return to my own lands when I was stronger.
"But first I needs must find my sword. I searched long and long, hundreds of years, and found it at last in Russia, as I knew I must, its beauty undimmed.
"When I walk as a man, I can still travel as a god, if I let my host fall into a trance and do not leave him too long. I flitted to Greenland, where many of the desperate survivors of the Western Settlement greeted me gladly. There was battle, and my people killed the Christian men, packed the women and stock into boats, and we sailed for Vinland. I took them by way of Hudson's Bay, and far inland, where no chance Icelander blown astray might find them. I lacked but one thing a proper sword-wielder.
"So I flitted back to the body I'd left in Norway, and I went to the king. I told him a tale of apostasy in Greenland, and roused his blood for a crusade. I found my sword-man in Paul Knutsson, and it was not hard to persuade the king to send him on the holy mission.
"I have told you of the expedition. I gave the sword to Paul Knutsson, bidding him use it mightily against the heathen. I flitted to Vinland and possessed a one-eyed man, and in his skin met the explorers and guided them. I set the two parties on each other and entered the fray myself. But Knutsson feared magic, and distrusted the sword. When a vision came to him in the battle he took it as a sign, and cast the sword away, choosing death.
"In my rage I flung my spear to the heavens, and by ill luck it struck the comet you call Cerafsky, sticking fast in it. With it went the greater part of my remaining power, for of course it was Gungnir, the staff of my strength, forged by dwarfs. Worse, a monk among the Christians had carved that stone we've seen, and bound me with my own magic. I could not even touch the stone. I had barely strength to flit back to my own lands again, and since I have wandered in countless bodies, little more than a base magician. But I knew that one day the stone must be broken, and when next the comet returned I would be prepared to take my power again. Here I am. And here you are. And I see now how good it was that I was prevented so long, for of all the sword-men I have seen, you are the truest, Carl Martell!"
"You want me to kill you?" Martell asked.
"Why not? Am I not hateful in your eyes? What shall I do to earn my death? Rape another woman? This one, perhaps?" He gestured to Elaine, whose eyes pleaded.
"You can't make me your tool, Oski."
"Can I tempt you with glory? You are a sword, and a sword's proper work is to rule. Both the Olafs were swords. When I come to my own there will be a new order in this world, a more virile age. It will need great men. You can be their chief!"
Martell only smiled.
"Would you be a god, Martell? My brothers and my children must be reborn too. They will need hosts. A man who is a sword could well be Tyr, god of war. Think of that, Martell!"
"I have a God."
"You have no power-lust? What of knowledge then? I can tell you things that would set your mind blazing. I can tell you where to dig to find the greatest undiscovered hoard of Viking loot in the world. I can tell you legends long forgotten would you know how Arthur of Britain came to Norway, and what he did there? I can tell you that story and show you how to prove it. Or I can give you the power to walk in your dreams as I walk, and see and hear and feel the past as it happened. Tell me I do not tempt you!"
"You tempt me." Martell shivered. "What of it?"
"Not even that? Then think on this this self-devouring nation has made a law now to suppress the very belief you've embraced. And mark what I say, this is only the beginning of the persecution. In my world you'll have an honest enemy, one who'll fight you fairly and not gas about openmindedness while outlawing every opinion but its own."
"You speak well, and you have a point, but I can't do anything to stop what my government is doing. You I can stop."
"I am sorry. I would have had you for friend and sword-brother. I would have called you son. I am a chieftain who gives great gifts."
"I know a greater."
"Then I must descend to threats. Either I will be the sacrifice, Martell, or this woman will. I think your greater God would not honor your integrity if you let her hang just to protect it."
Martell opened his mouth but found no words in it.
"You know I'll do it! Come, you wish my death and so do I why should we be at loggerheads?"
He strode nearer the tree and took up the rope-end.
"Why waste time, Martell? I've left you no choice. That is the way of gods." He pulled up the slack.
Something in Martell screamed, "LIE!" There was a lie here, and he needed to name it.
"The sword, Martell! Use the sword!"
Martell said, "What you want is false. I can't perform a false act. I am a sword."
Oski cried, "There is no man so true as a sword, and no sword is wholly true!"
"YES!" cried Martell, and he saw it at last. He raised the sword, and beheld his reflected face shining in the blade. Looking deeper, he probed the heart of the thing and yes! the sword had a flaw.
"It's true," he said. "I am flawed, and the sword is flawed. My flaw is my own fault, but the sword's flaw is yours. It cannot be wholly true because you are a lie!
"I may be no god, or king, or hero, but I am more than a lie.
"I am your master!
"You think you know who you are, but you have no inkling! How could great Odin be a thug and a bully? Only by being a lie. Poets know who you are, and any ten-year-old with a book of legends knows who you are, but you don't!
"There was always a high Odin and a low Odin. The high Odin inspired poetry and bold deeds, while the low Odin deceived and lied and buried his face in corpses with the ravens. As you dwindled through the centuries, you lost the glory that once reflected your Creator. There's nothing creative left in you now all you can dream is destruction. The poems Sigfod Oski made were his own without his genius you couldn't have made a limerick. You are a parasite. You are, in truth, a gelding. You've become merely Loki. Loki was always Odin's separable soul a lecher and father of monsters. He walked among the gods but was never of them, for he could not raise his eyes higher than his belly. He held godhood in his hand as a child holds a weapon, dangerous in his ignorance.
"You don't know what you're for, Odin, and you don't know what I'm for, and you don't know what a sword is for! I am a sword, and I am my Master's, so I know. A sword is for breaking!"
Martell raised the sword heavenward and looked upon it, channeling his truth-sense into it, bearing down, seeking the flaw with prehensile thought.
"You are a sword, Martell!" cried Oski. "Break it and you will surely die!"
"True," said Martell, and the sword exploded in a thousand gleaming shards, and Martell bowed to his death.
And it was as if he fell from a great height, and time was stretched, and he saw Odin standing beneath the ash, tall and gold-helmed and night-cloaked. And the wolf came leaping down the hillside toward him, howling his joy.
And when Odin saw the wolf, a weird light kindled in his eye, and he stood, arms stretched wide, to receive the beast.
And it seemed to Martell that Odin's mouth gaped wide, wider, impossibly wide, and straight into his mouth the wolf leaped, with a kind of nuptial cry, one at last with his god, whose name is Fenris, whose name is Loki, whose name is Odin.
And Odin stood, tall and alone, and he screamed as he loomed taller and taller, and he was changed, and he became the Wolf, Fenris, who had pursued him across the miles and the centuries, as all creatures pursue themselves.
With a howl, the Wolf leaped heavenward. Above it waited the comet, and the spear, and the last circle of all.
Rory Buchan steered his Golf back toward the farm, along the edge of the woods, with one hand. The car seat was sticky with blood.
He'd found Laura crumpled at the bottom of the silo. She had cracked her head on the foundation, and as with all head wounds the bleeding had been frightening. He couldn't revive her, and there was no telephone, so he had gently carried her to his car and driven her to the hospital in town. They had stitched and bound his arm, and a doctor had told him Laura was in serious condition, refusing to say more.
A middle-aged woman in the Emergency waiting room had been noisily telling everyone about a mob that was going out to attack the W.O.W. farm. He thought he'd better go there.
When he was about a mile from the place, a tall figure moved out of the woods and waved him down. In the headlights he recognized the bearded man called Solar Bull, who would always be Rowan to him.
He pulled over.
Rowan opened the passenger door. "Brother Rory! Thank the Lord it's you!" He got in, panting. "The cops caught us torching the house. I nearly got arrested."
Rory stared into the black eyes. He was still in shock, and the combination of a face he knew under one name with a voice he knew under another fuddled him.
"You're Thumb!" he gasped.
Rowan did a double take and made a motion with his jaw as if he had something in his mouth too large for it. "Ah-yeah, that's right," he said, slowly. "You haven't seen me here before without this, have you?" He pulled a black ski mask from his jacket pocket.
"All you said and all the time you were the High Priest of W.O.W!"
"I was God's agent, Brother! I had to be on the inside to know what they were plotting!"
"You led them. You lied to them like you lied to me. There wasn't any Satanic plot. Just you, stirring up trouble for trouble's sake!"
"I do the Lord's work, Brother! Listen to me! It wasn't long after after what I did to your friend that I saw the evil of my ways and gave my life to Jesus. And believe me, nothing weighed on my heart more than the memory of that wicked deed. You may not believe it, but I didn't kill many people. I was trying to gain respect, to make a reputation. It stayed on my mind, and it hurt me bad. I learned who you were and swore to the Lord that if I ever had the chance, I'd make it up to you.
"The Hands of God recruited me because I knew the ways of the Enemy. And when they sent me here, think of my joy when I turned on the radio to a Christian station and heard your voice and your name!
"I invited you to join us. I wanted to take you under my wing, to teach you, to show you adventure and glory in the Name of the Lord! We can still do it, Brother! Help me get away! I'll find a phone, and the Hands of God will have us out of here in twenty minutes, and there'll be other days, other battles to win! We'll fight the good fight together!"
"You killed Heather," said Rory. "You killed Heather, and you messed up Laura so bad that she may die. And I don't know what happened on the farm tonight, but I suppose you killed somebody there too."
"Only one, as it turns out. But he was a son of perdition, trying to use his office as a shield for Satan."
Rory leaned his forehead against the top of the steering wheel. He felt sore and tired. "Rowan, you're the sinner against the Holy Spirit. Don't ask me to be like you. I hate it, but I've got to forgive you. I forgive you, and I'll pray for you, but you'd better get out of my car now, because I'm not gonna help you run from justice."
Eyes closed, he did not see the big fist that slammed into his temple.
Rowan dragged him out of the car, rolled him into the ditch, and drove away.