The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [116]
"Including me?"
"Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been staring at me ever since you got here. Particularly at my behind."
"Just appreciating a work of art."
"On the strength of that, I didn't think you'd be in any way unwilling."
"Bang-on there."
"And, in so far as I have a type I prefer, you're it. A warrior. A man of passion. Someone who seldom thinks before he acts. Callous at times. Rugged in manner as well as looks."
"I'll take all that as a compliment."
"It's meant that way. I had a husband once - a roamer, a faraway-eyed dreamer, poetically inclined. His name was Od."
"What was odd about it?"
"No. That was his name. Od. He disappeared one day. Just... wandered off, never to be seen again. I was sad that he went but it taught me that I wasn't suited to be with a man of that sort. My kind of man does not live too much inside his own head. He gets out there. He engages with life. He does."
"Like me. I do."
"I've seen it. We all have. Odin is especially impressed with your quick-wittedness, your decisiveness under pressure. He believes you might just make all the difference in the coming days. You might just tip the scales in our favour."
"Well, I'll try."
"And that's why he's concerned about this state of despondency you've fallen into since coming back from Jotunheim. You're still doing whatever's asked of you, but your heart doesn't seem to be in it any more."
"Hold it," I said, halting. "Before you go on, tell me - did he put you up to this?"
"What? Odin?"
"Did he ask you to get me out here and, you know, jump my bones? Has this just been some kind of sympathy shag to cheer me up? Because if so..."
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"If so..." I repeated, then said, "I don't really mind. It was great either way."
"Right attitude. And no, this was not the All-Father's idea. It was mine alone. And sympathy does not come into it. My own selfish desires aside, I simply wanted to bring you to your senses, remind you who you are, pull you out of yourself."
I leered. "That, you definitely did."
"Because, Gid, your comrade may have died, but you are still here. And we need you here. We need you fully with us when Ragnarök comes."
"Chops was a good man, though. When I think that Hel's got him now..."
"Has she?" Freya said, arching an eyebrow.
"She hasn't? But isn't that what happens when you die? Hel comes to collect you and drags you off to Niflheim?"
"Did you see her appear over his body?"
"No. I was kind of busy trying not to get killed myself."
"There is another world where the souls of the dead may go."
"What! No one told me that."
"Gimlé. High Heaven. The outermost of the Nine Worlds. Hel can claim sinners, those who have acted dishonourably or shamefully in life or have committed heinous crimes."
"I imagine that would include those American black ops guys."
"Yes. But a virtuous man, a blameless man, anyone who has been without taint, even a god, goes to Gimlé after death, there to spend eternity in oneness with the glorious light and majesty that lies at the heart of all creation. Was your comrade that sort of man?"
"Dunno. I'd say probably."
"Then there's every chance that that's where he is now - Gimlé."
It was a load off my mind, seriously it was, to think that Chopsticks hadn't gone to Niflheim and wasn't suffering a long drawn out erosion of the soul under Hel's cackling gaze. I felt suddenly about ten pounds lighter.
"So how come she got Balder, then?" I said. "Wasn't he, like, the ultimate Aesir? Asgard's answer to Gandhi?"
"It is the greatest of injustices," Freya replied. "She should never have had him. In the wake of Balder's death Odin despatched son after son to Niflheim, to remonstrate with Hel and get her to agree to send Balder on to Gimlé. She refused at first, but finally relented. She said she would do as Odin asked."
"'But.' I bet there