The Age Of Odin

Eleven

Two more days in Frigga's tender care. Two more days of poultices and vile-tasting but remarkably effective medicine. Two more days of Frigga clucking and fussing, only this time with added apologies for Thor's behaviour.

'My stepson,' she said, 'is a brute. Uncouth, shallow. Mud for brains. But then what would you expect with an earth goddess for a mother? What Odin ever saw in that Fjorgyn I will never know. A pair of plump fertile breasts will turn any man's head, I suppose. It certainly couldn't have been her conversation. 'Oh look, a flower! Oh look, a pebble! Oh look, another flower!' And those are among her more intelligent utterances.'

I laughed. With Frigga and at her. It was clear to me that mass delusion was the order of the day at Asgard Hall. Odin was at the centre of it, a sort of nucleus that the rest of them orbited around — his wife, the Valkyries, Thor, even the delectable Freya. He'd drawn them all, family members and outsiders alike, into his Norse-god fantasy. Like one of those lunatic-fringe evangelical types, a Jim Jones, a David Koresh, only instead of extreme Christianity he was peddling another faith, this one long defunct. He had the charisma. He had the willing acolytes.

He also had soldiers. And guns.

So what was he planning? What was the point of it all? What the fuck was the Valhalla Mission?

I couldn't guess, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know anyway. My main imperative was leaving. Quick as I could. Get back out into the real world, where the sane people lived. My set-to with Thor was a setback, but Frigga had me on my feet again in a jiffy. By the third day I was feeling hale and hearty. Had some beautiful bruising — chest like a sunset, ankle purple from heel to calf. But over all I was perky. Everything in basic working order, even my wrist. So I headed out into the grounds to recce an exit strategy. It didn't take me long to discover a main drive that led down from the castle, curving smoothly through the contours of the landscape. Snowmobile and tyre tracks pointed the way. I walked along the drive for a couple of miles past silent white forests and a tinkling ice-encrusted stream, until I came to a guardhouse next to a bridge.

A man stepped out from the guardhouse as I approached. He wore a parka and a fur-lined hunting cap, the kind with the earflaps, and he had a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and a gun strapped to his back — an AK-47, weapon of choice for guerrillas, pirates and bongo-bongo-land paramilitaries everywhere, the Big Mac of assault rifles. He also had a thermos in his hand, and was in the midst of pouring himself a cup of steaming hot chocolate.

'Want some?' he said, proffering the cup.

Taken aback, I said yes. I'd anticipated being challenged. Who goes there? and the business end of the Kalashnikov being shoved up my nose. But a glug of hot choc went down a treat.

'Heimdall, right?' I said.

He gave a comical salute. 'That's me. Watchman of the Aesir and Vanir. Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are the fellow the Valkyries brought past me the other night. I must say, you're looking a lot better than you did then.'

'I'm a new man.'

'Good old Frigga. I wouldn't be astonished if my dear stepmother could raise the dead.'

'In my case she virtually did.' I liked Heimdall already. He was the most down-to-earth of anyone I'd met so far here. He made good hot chocolate, too. I held out the empty cup for seconds, and he obliged.

'So what brings you all the way out here to my humble sentry post? Mere curiosity?'

Said genially, but it was a loaded question.

'Just getting the lay of the land,' I said.

Heimdall peered at me. I'd not noticed before how piercing his eyes were, or how blue. They were the icy blue of glaciers, of arctic skies. They were eyes that missed very little.

'If you're looking to leave,' he said, 'I must advise you, you have a considerable walk ahead.'

'If I'm leaving here,' I assured him, 'I won't be walking.'

'Sensible man.'

'And you, I guess, won't be stopping me.' Partly a question, mostly a statement.

'Not my job to. It's what's coming in that I have to keep an eye on, not what's going out. Would you like to see Bifrost?'

I dredged the name up from my memories of those old Mighty Thor comics. 'The bridge?'

'None other. Come on.'

He led me past the guardhouse, through whose open door I saw a glowing gas heater, a chair and, hanging from a hook on the wall, a long, curly trumpet-type thing made of brass.

'Its nickname may be the Rainbow Bridge,' Heimdall was saying, sounding much like a museum tour guide, 'but in truth it has only three colours, one for each span.'

And so it did. It was a suspension bridge which traversed a deep, sheer-sided gorge in three sections divided by a pair of support towers. Its boards, scrupulously swept of snow, were painted red for the nearest section, then green, then blue. As I set foot on the first of them I heard a low, forbidding creak and felt a wobble and a bit of give, which made me step back sharpish. The drop beneath was something like a hundred metres but might have been more. Snow could make distances, especially vertical ones, hard to gauge.

'Don't worry, appearances to the contrary it's quite secure,' Heimdall said. 'We've had all sorts of traffic over here, even up to five-ton trucks, and Bifrost, anyway, is destined to remain standing for all eternity. After all, it's built out of fire, water and air — the three elements of creation.'

Looked to me like the only materials involved were metal, timber and emulsion, but I kept shtum.

'This is the only way in or out of Asgard other than cross-country,' Heimdall said, 'and I couldn't recommend that. You know yourself what it can be like out there for the unwary traveller. And it isn't just wolves you have to watch out for.'

'Yeah, I know. Trolls, right?'

'Or simply getting lost,' he said, probably not spotting the cynicism. 'Plenty of space out there to get lost in. The forests are vast and trackless. Unless you know your way around them, as the Valkyries do, you could wander there in circles 'til you die.'

I gestured to the far side of the bridge. 'But that-a-way, over the bridge, that'll definitely get you back to, er, Midgard. Right?'

He nodded. 'Long way, though. Very long way. Bifrost is the only link between Asgard and Midgard, but many Midgardian roads lead to Bifrost and you may take the wrong one and end up far from where you'd wish to be.'

'Like I said, I won't be walking. I'll — '

All at once, Heimdall's head snapped round. He squinted, eyes narrowing to glittering pinpricks.

'Did you hear that?' he whispered.

'Nope. But then I've got shit hearing.'

'I haven't. Quite the opposite. I can hear wool growing on a sheep in a far-off field. I can hear a blade of grass pushing up through the soil in the next county.'

'That's quite a talent. Maybe you should — '

'Shh!' he hissed. 'There it is again.'

He whipped the Kalashnikov off his back, switched the selector to semiauto, and racked the charging handle. His gaze was focused on the woods lying beyond the gorge. I saw him slow his breathing to the bare minimum, scarcely a trickle of vapour coming from his nostrils. He stood rigid. Only those eyes moved, scanning the gloomy darkness beneath the distant trees.

A minute passed.

Two.

I didn't say a thing. Heimdall was scamming me. There was nothing out there. He hadn't heard a sound. He just wanted to spook me, for reasons best known to him.

Only, the intensity with which he was staring…

And, I couldn't be sure, but he seemed scared. Alarmed, at any rate. Genuinely. Not faking it. There was a