Thor’s red eyebrows collided with confusion. “Was there or was there not a Ragnarok?”
“Our Ragnarok, no.” Odin laid his left hand on Thor’s arm. “Allow Loki to explain.”
Thor grumbled and glowered at me. “Speak on, Deceiver.”
“For forever and a day we have known of other gods and their realms. We have also known that we draw life from the belief of our worshipers in us. Their prayers and invocations, sacrifices and vows sustain us.” I opened my hands. “We use the power they give us to grant boons to our favorites, inspiring others to greater belief and sacrifice in the hopes we will favor them, too.”
My fellow gods squirmed a bit in their chairs. Though they knew nothing of B. F. Skinner, they had intuitively grasped the fact that random interval reinforcement was truly the most powerful inducement to create and maintain a behavior pattern. Often, in fact, we received credit for things we did not do. If a tree fell on a longhouse during a storm, the enemies of the person so afflicted would offer thanks to me or another god for our smiting of then-enemy.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but people are much more protective about their food than they are their devotion.
“Well to the south of our Midgard holdings, in the desert crossroads, Jehovah decided to retire.”
Heimdall’s treasure-trove smile broadened. “Had I created the world in six days, I would have chosen more than one day’s rest, too.”
We all laughed. While it was true most of us could not remember where we had come from, and therefore made up rather elaborate stories about our antecedents, only Jehovah had come up with the tale of his being the end-all and be-all of existence. While claiming to have killed your own parents wasn’t necessarily the most attractive story we could have come up with, it was easier for humans to relate to than a tale of willing oneself into full-blown, egotistical existence,
“I’m certain that had something to do with it, Heimdall. In any event, to facilitate his retirement, he had a fling with a human and she gave birth to a son, Joshua—though he is now more commonly known as Jesus and the Christ. He performed some miracles, gave his people the benefit of his wisdom, then hung from a tree until dead.”
Thor frowned. “How long was he on the tree?”
“An afternoon.”
The god of thunder snickered. “An afternoon? That’s nothing compared to Odin’s nine days, and he was stuck on his own spear at the time.”
“Josh may well have heard of the tale, or his followers did, because there was a spear-sticking involved in the whole incident, too. His disciples bundled him off to a tomb, and after a day and a half, Josh came back to life.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Again, a substandard performance, but one that was convincing for his people.”
Tyr swept golden locks away from his blue eyes. “I recall hearing of the Christ when some of his followers were slain for spreading his story among my people.”
My eyes narrowed. “Would that we had realized the danger of his cult. The Christ demanded two things of his followers. The first he borrowed from his father: they were to have no gods but him before them. This demand of exclusivity is fine when you are a lonely godling ruling over nomads in featureless wastes—there were no other gods who wanted those people.”
Odin frowned. “When Jehovah’s people were captive in Thothheim and Baalheim, they were no threat to the indigenous gods.”
“No, but the Christ’s second demand of his believers is what made them malignant.” I put an edge into my voice so even Thor could understand what I was saying was important. “The Christ demanded they share their religion with others, who would then become exclusively his and spread the faith further.”
Thor shook his head. “I don’t believe you. I would remember such a thing.”
“You don’t remember because the Christ movement took hold in our realm almost overnight. As we concerned ourselves with the coming of Ragnarok, the Christers stole into our lands. Our believers dwindled, then abandoned us. We fell into the sleep of the forgotten.”
Heimdall cocked an eyebrow at me. “If this is true, if we all became forgotten, how is it you know this story?”
I pressed my hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “In their zeal to spread Christism, they linked me with Lucifer, the ancient enemy Jehovah spawned and who tormented Joshua. There are those humans who always go against the prevailing sentiment of society, and worshiping me became a viable alternative for them.”
Tyr reached up with his mechanical hand and tried to pluck a fly out of the air. “If these Christers hold sway, how are we here, now?”
My smile broadened. “Christism did become quite widespread and certainly become the dominant religion in the world, but “it is based on tolerance and pacifism. As a result, some evils in the world go unchecked. I believe it was the slaughter of Jehovah’s core constituency in central Europe that first alarmed Jehovah. He took a look at what ~ the Christ had done with the family firm and initiated a hostile takeover of the enterprise. He forced Joshua out and returned things to the way they had been. Joshua immediately struck out on his own, but his people had become fragmented and his doctrine muddled. At the same time Christism became seen by any number of people as theological imperialism, so they rejected it and returned to the old ways.
“Our ways.”
“I cannot believe it.” Thor frowned mightily. “You say this Christ was a pacifist who preached tolerance.”
“Exactly.”
“No fighting? No warrior tradition?”
“No, he was a pacifist. He completely eschewed violence.”
Thor’s lower lip quivered for a moment. “If he was a pacifist, how were we defeated?”
I smiled. “He offered people something they wanted. He promised them life after death.”
“So did we.”
Odin pressed his hands to the tabletop. “This brings us to the point of this meeting. The return of people to the old faiths has given us another chance at life, but these people are not the people we knew of old. Things are different, now, and we must avail ourselves of the means we have today to guarantee we do not go away again.”
Thor shook his head.”I don’t understand. We are the gods. We do not change. People worship us for what we are, what we offer them.”
“And there is the problem.” I frowned. “Quite frankly, the Aesir are a public relations nightmare. All of us here have our warrior aspects, but war just isn’t in vogue any more.”
Thor’s eyes blazed. “War is the most noble and lofty pursuit to which a man can aspire. This is why the boldest and most brave warriors are plucked by the Valkyries from the fields of the dead and brought to Valhalla. Odin himself ordered warriors to be buried with their arms and armor so they would be prepared to join us in the last days, fighting against our foes at Ragnarok!”
I sighed. “Look, we really need to rethink this Ragnarok thing. The Christers pretty much own the idea of a grand battle to usher in the end of the world, so our Ragnarok just comes across as a pale imitation of their Armageddon. And this warriors-only thing, that’s got to go, too.”
The god of thunder’s voice boomed. “What? You want to admit other than warriors to Valhalla?”
“Thor, what you would recognize as warriors in this era carry weapons that can kill a man at over a mile. Most of the wars now are called police actions, which means people far away use weapons that hit with the force of Mjolnir to shatter their enemy’s cities. The heroic nature of combat you recall so fondly is no more.”
Thor’s florid face drained of color. “There are no more humans who bravely venture out, risking life and limb, to defeat their enemies and reap riches for themselves?”