• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"Soaps never bloody finish," I said. "They just grind on and on. But that's the nature of them."

"Indeed. They give the illusion of progress without offering any form of resolution. Somewhat like a mortal life."

"Except mortal lives do have a resolution, if you can call it that. They all end eventually."

"And maybe that's the crucial difference between a mortal and a god - between you, Gid, and me. I am a living story, an element of a larger overarching narrative. My tale has been told over and over in the past. Doubtless it will continue to be told over and over in the future. Maybe that is immortality: to recur and recur. Even now, perhaps someone is writing or speaking about me, putting words into my mouth, generating afresh the essence that is Bragi, bard of Asgard and enshriner of the doings of the Einherjar. I am embedded deep in the Midgardian psyche, below the surface but ever present. All the Aesir and Vanir are. We survive within you from age to age, as ideas, stories, archetypes. And every time we are remembered, every time our saga is retold, we are re-created whole and live out a brand new lifespan."

"You reckon?"

"Why not? If gods are fictions, then we are brought to life wherever there is a bard by a hearthside or, if you prefer, a writer at a desk. They think of us, therefore we are."

"Shit..." My head was starting to throb. It was a lot to take in. Who'd have thought school dropout Gid Coxall would be standing discussing this kind of metaphysical bobbins with Asgard's very own poet in residence, while waiting for the end of the world to start?

We'd arrived at the castle.

"Well, here's where our paths divide," Bragi said. "Goodnight, Gid."

He walked off one way. I walked off the other, only to stop after a few paces and turn and call out: "This does work out okay, doesn't it? Ragnarök? There's a happy ending?"

"For some, yes. For others, no."

"But ultimately the good guys win, the bad guys lose. Yeah?"

"It's a work in progress," Bragi said after a moment, then added slyly: "Aren't we all?"

And that was as much as I could get out of him on that subject.

Bloody creative types.

Fifty

The first incursion came the next morning. A hit-and-run. No contact, no casualties. They took out one of our ammo dumps, situated near an intersection with Svartalfheim.

We inspected the damage - Thor's team, with Huginn and Muninn monitoring for Odin. Nothing much to see, just a smoking crater and a few strewn, charred trees that had once been a copse.

"C-Four plastic explosive," Backdoor opined. "About twenty pounds of it."

"No shit, Sherlock," I said. "And here was I thinking those trees fell over all by themselves."

"They must have been conducting surveillance from across the way," said Paddy, gazing towards Svartalfheim. "Saw the Valkyries stash the ammo. Marked the spot for future reference."

"Is this state-the-fucking-obvious week or what?" I snapped. I turned and eyed the undulating barren badlands of Svartalfheim, wondering if Loki's commandos were still out there somewhere. Bedded down in black camo gear and watching us through binoculars. And chortling.

"The gnomes," I said to Thor. "I thought they were on our side. Friends of Asgard."

"The gnomes are nobody's friend," he replied. "They do business with whomever wishes to do business with them but they owe allegiance to none but themselves."

"So how come they've given safe passage to Loki's troops?"

"They haven't," said Huginn and Muninn in tandem, speaking in Odin's voice from their perch on Thor's shoulders. "What you must understand is that the gnomes dwell perpetually underground. Sunlight turns them to stone, so they daren't venture up onto the surface. Even starlight makes them unwell. Their home is their caverns."

"Meaning anyone can wander across their world if they want to."

The ravens gave a synchronised nod. "The terrain above is no man's land, yes. The gnomes have no use for it, and care little who crosses it. Enter their