He hurried to take advantage of the remaining time.
“Loki. What is happening in Africa?”
Since ’49 the Dark Continent had been dark indeed. From Tunis to the Cape of Good Hope, fires burned, and rumors of horror flowed.
Loki whispered softly.
“Surtur must needs have a home, before the time of raging.
“There, in torment, men cry out, screaming for an ending.”
The giant shook his great head. “In Africa and on the great plains of Russia, terrible magics are being made, and terrible woe.”
Back in Israel-Iran Chris had seem some of the refugees—Blacks and high-cheeked Slavs— lucky escapees who had fled the fires in time. Even they had not been able to tell what was happening in the interior. Only people who had seen the earlier horrors—whose arms bore stenciled numbers from the first wave of chimney camps— could imagine what was happening in the silent continents. And those fierce men and women kept their silence.
It struck Chris that Loki did not seem to speak out of pity, but matter-of-factly, as if he thought a mistake were being made, but not any particular evil.
“Terrible magics…” Chris repeated. And suddenly he had a thought. “You mean the purpose isn’t only to slaughter people? That something else is going on, as well? Is it related to the reason why you saved those people from the first camps? Was something being done to them?”
Chris had a sense that there was something important here. Something ultimately crucial. But Loki smiled, holding up three fingers.
“No more questions. It is time.”
They scraped bottom. Sailors leaped out into the icy water to drag the boat up to the rocky shore. Shortly, Chris was busy supervising the unloading of their supplies, but his mind was a turmoil.
Loki was hiding something, laughing at him for having come so close and yet missing the target. There was more to this venture, tonight, than an attempt to kill a few alien gods.
High in the dark forest canopy, a crow cawed scratchily. The dwarf, laden under enough boxes to crush a man, rolled its eyes and moaned softly, but Loki seemed not to notice.
“Reet freaking hideaway, daddyo,” O’Leary muttered as he helped Chris shoulder the bomb’s fuse mechanism. “A heavy-duty scene.”
“Right,” Chris answered, feeling sure he understood the beatnik this time. “A heavy-duty scene.” They set out, following the faint blazings laid by their marine scouts.
As they climbed a narrow trail from the beach, Chris felt a growing sense of anticipation… a feeling of being, right then, at the navel of the world. For well or ill, this place was where the fate of the world hung. He could think of no better end than to sear this island clean of all life. If that meant standing beside the bomb and triggering it himself, well, few men ever had a chance to trade their lives so well.
They were deep under the forest canopy, now. Chris caught sight of flickering movements under the trees, marine flankers guarding them and their precious cargo. According to prewar maps, they had only to top one rise, then another. From that prominence, any place to plant the bomb would be as good as any other.
Chris started to turn, to look back at Loki… but at that moment the night erupted with light. Flares popped and fizzed and floated slowly through the branches on tiny parachutes. Men dove for cover as tracer bullets sent their shadows fleeing. There was a sudden gunfire up ahead,-and loud concussions. Men screamed.
Chris sought cover behind a towering fir as mortars began pounding the forest around him.
From high up the hillside—even over the explosions—they heard booming laughter.
Clutching the roots of a tree, Chris looked back. A dozen yards away, the dwarf lay flat on his back, a smoking ruin where a mortar round must have landed squarely.
But then he felt a hand on his shoulder. O’Leary pointed up the hill and whispered, goggle-eyed, “Dig it, man.”
Chris turned and stared upslope at a huge, man-like being striding down the hillside, followed by dark-cloaked, armed men. The figure carried a giant bludgeon which screamed whenever he threw it, crushing trees and marines without prejudice. Giant conifers exploded into kindling and men were turned into jam. Then the weapon swept back into the red-bearded Aesir’s hand.
Not mortars. Chris realized. Thor’s hammer.
Of Loki, there was no sign at all.
3
“There there, Hugin. Fear not the dark Americans. They shall not hurt thee.”
The one-eyed being called Odin sat upon a throne of ebony, bearing upon his upraised left hand a raven the same color as night. A jewel set in the giant’s eyepatch glittered like an orb more far-seeing than the one he had lost, and across his lap lay a shining spear.
On both sides stood fur-clad figures nearly as imposing, one blond, with a great axe laid arrogantly over his shoulder, the other red-bearded, leaning
Guards in black leather, twin lightning strokes on their collars, stood at attention around the hall of rough-hewn timbers. Even their rifles were polished black. The only spot of color on their SS uniforms
The being called Odin looked down at the prisoners, chained together in a heap on the floor of the great hall.
“Alas. Poor Hugin has not forgiven you, my American guests. His brother, Munin, was lost when Berlin burned under your Hellfire bombs.”
The Aesir chief’s remaining eye gleamed ferally. “And who can blame my poor watch-bird, or fail to understand a father’s grief, when that same flame deluge consumed my bright boy, my far-seeing Heimdallr.”
The survivors of the ill-fated raiding patty lay on the dry stone floor, exhausted. The unconscious, dying Major Marlowe was in no condition to answer for them, but one of the Free British volunteers stood up, rattling his chains, and spat on the floor in front of the manlike creature.
“Higgins!” O’Leary tried to pull on the man’s arm, but was shrugged off as the Brit shook his fist.
“Yeah, they got your precious boy in Berlin. And you killed everyone in London an’ Paris in revenge! I say the Yanks were too soft, lettin’ that stop ’em. They should’a gone ahead, whatever the price, an’ fried every last Aryan bitch an’ cub…”
His defiance was cut off as a Gestapo officer knocked him down. SS troopers brought their rifle butts down hard, again and again.
Finally, Odin waved them back.
“Take the body to the center of the Great Circle, to be sent to Valhalla.”
The officer looked up sharply, but Odin rumbled in a tone that assumed obedience. “I want that brave man with me, when Fimbul-Winter blows,” the creature explained. And obviously he thought that settled the matter. As black-uniformed guards cut the limp form free, the chief of the Aesir chucked his raven under the beak and offered it a morsel of meat. He spoke to the huge redhead standing beside him.
“Thor, my son. These other things are thine. Poor prizes, I admit, but they did show some prowess in following the Liar this far. What will thou do with them?”
The giant stroked his hammer with gauntlets the size of small dogs. Here, indeed, was a creature that made even Loki seem small.
He stepped forward and scanned the prisoners, as if searching for something. When his gaze alighted on Chris, it seemed to shimmer. His voice was as deep as the growling of earthquakes.
“I will deign to speak with one or two of them, Father.”
“Good.” Odin nodded. “Have them cast into a pit, somewhere,” he told the SS General nearby, who clicked his heels and bowed low. “And await my son’s pleasure.”