Sleipnir

Reverently she handed me the box. "You are chosen."

I blinked but carefully said nothing. It seemed likely that she would explain further. (And oddly enough the prospect sent a chill up my spine.)

"For generations, it has always chosen its keeper from the males of my family. Now there are no more. You are the one it wants."

I opened the lid. For a long moment, my eyes refused to focus on the object inside. Black as Sleipnir's eyes, a long, somehow menacing shadow crouched between folds of crimson velvet. From needle-pointed blade tip to end of pommel, absolutely no light reflected from the knife. It wasn't coated or plated to look black; it was black—even the razor-honed edge, which should have reflected silver; but didn't. A dragon's-head guard and tail-shaped haft curled into a belt or thong clip. It might have been gaudy—should have been—but it wasn't.

Not at all.

Without quite knowing how it got there, I found my fingers closing about the haft which lay on my abruptly sweating palm. It was soft and warm to the touch; it felt almost like living flesh. Something, no doubt feedback from my inexplicably pounding pulse, created a sensation within my fist that felt oddly like the purr of a smugly self-satisfied cat.

I looked at it more closely. From its appearance, I couldn't hazard a guess as to what it was made of. Obviously it was very old (possibly even ancient). It was certainly utterly unique, and unmistakably priceless; somehow I knew instantly that the last place it belonged was a museum—or maybe, as I became aware of my surroundings once again, the next-to-the-last place... .

Hastily I dropped the knife back into the velvet, snapped the lid closed, and met Ingrid Vernon's unfathomable gaze.

"I can't accept this!" I sputtered.

She held up a hand. I shut up.

"It chose you," she stated flatly, "and that's all there is to be said. Keep it, Randy. For his sake."

I gave up. Briefly (and without notable success) I tried to say something appreciative. Eventually I fell silent.

Presently she said, "It was good of you to want to come."

"I always wanted to meet you," I fumbled.

She offered a wan smile. "Thank you, I see you mean that, and I wanted to meet you, too. But I didn't want it to be..."

I couldn't answer. She seemed to understand.

Finally, after a timeless interval, I broke the quiet that had settled over the room. "I, uh, guess I'd better be going. Have to get back to Portland, to the airport... ."

Flushing, I made an awkward farewell.

I could feel her eyes on my back all the way to the rented car; then I was alone with the knife. I opened the box again, and stared at the dead black shape for a moment. It occurred to me that Gary probably had been right. This little number was thief-bait. Even if I hadn't had a job to get back to—Uncle Sam still wanted me—I probably wasn't going to want to look at it again for quite some time. If ever. Too many memories. It would have to get used to its dark little box until my discharge.

I experienced an inexplicable flash of anger at the thought. The feeling grew stronger as I snapped the lid shut and rewrapped the gingham. It intensified further as I began to think about getting back to duty. The feeling persisted all the way back to Germany, where I asked that it be logged in and locked up safely in the arms room. As I walked away, I received an indelible impression of frustrated rage.

Chapter Seven

A dark swirl of water raced away from me, down into the heart of the mountain, as cold as my gut. The next choice I made might well be my last. I had to decide not only whether I went left or right; but also whether or not to trust the knife which now hung poised along my calf. A grimace tugged at my lips.

The immortal Juliet had begged Romeo not to swear by the "inconstant moon" lest his love prove just as changeable; the risk that this knife would be just as fickle loomed in the foreground of my awareness.

I eyed the blade uneasily; then reached down and felt the grip slide smoothly into my hand. Instead of holding it by the haft, I simply laid the knife across my palms and stared at it. It was heavy and reassuringly solid to the touch; but—as I had learned shortly after acquiring the damned thing—I had ample reason to be wary. I glanced at the river again. The fall of black water churned its surface with endless boiling motion.

Black knife, black water...

The knife lay cold and dead against my palms, giving me no clue. But then I didn't really need the knife to make my decision. The Christian hell might be notoriously easy to get into; but I was betting the Norse one wasn't. I thrust the blade back into its sheath and came briskly to my feet. I cast one last longing glance down that dry passageway... .

Then strode forward into black spray.

Gingerly I tested the footing along the edge, as far away from the cascading waterfall as possible. In seconds I was drenched to the skin, and the bottom continued to slope away, leaving me hip-deep and sinking in next to no time. The water was cold, nearer the temperature of an ice cube than liquid water. I gritted my teeth and kept going, trying unsuccessfully not to shiver as the icy water filled my boots and chilled my bones.

The bottom slowly leveled out, and I found myself waist-deep, struggling to stay upright in swift current that tugged at my pack and threatened to drag my feet out from under me. Gradually the current slowed as the walls widened out. Unfortunately, that made hanging on more difficult. Soon I couldn't reach both sides at once. After the roar of the waterfall died away, the only sound was that of the river itself, softly hissing over and around rocky protrusions.

I began to shiver in earnest as my frozen body tried to warm itself. Dying of hypothermia hadn't occurred to me; but it was entirely possible. Somehow I didn't think freezing to death qualified a hero for admission into Valhalla. Not that I felt much like a hero; I was just too goddamned mad to lie back and enjoy what most people would have considered inevitable.

I actually laughed aloud. The sound skittered across the black river and vanished downstream. Odin was probably very unhappy that I wasn't most people. I hadn't been, even before Gary's death, and afterward...

Afterward, I had felt a bitter kinship with the poor guy in Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, who had started sleeping nights handcuffed to his wife. But that guy's solution to his personal nightmare had been to run away and hope it didn't get any worse.

I didn't do things that way.

It had eventually occurred to me that Gary's murder had been—mythologically speaking—impossible. Gary Vernon had been "collected" by Sleipnir, Odin's personal courier for fetching to the Valhall those warriors killed in battle.

Gary Vernon had died in a traffic accident.

Sleipnir did not collect—and never had—traffic-accident victims. Those who died accidentally ended up in Niflheim, not Valhalla. That realization had stopped me cold in my tracks for a couple of days; fortunately, they were quiet days, because an entire division probably could have rolled through the fences next to my tower and I wouldn't have noticed. I'd been too busy with thoughts that leapfrogged across all the old stories I'd ever read as I tried to make sense of something even more impossible than the impossible.

And then, when I couldn't make sense of it, I'd gone out and done additional research. Lots and lots of additional research. My new obsession might have made me the butt of endless jokes; but nobody razzed me much. Of course, Rosetti's new orthodontia, compliments of Uncle Sam, might have prompted some of that reluctance. Somehow word had gotten around to leave me and my pagan gods strictly alone... .