Sleipnir

"You bet your sweet... life."

Skuld's blade—Skuld's!

How had they known the way I would react to Gary's murder? Actually, that was no great mystery. Given the circumstances of Gary's death—and my own peculiar personality—it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure that out. Skuld had made a couple of logical guesses, and tossed the knife into my likeliest path. The Sly Biter had simply hopped aboard my bandwagon, and come along for the ride, lending a hand now and again when I got myself inevitably into trouble.

Quite unexpectedly, I felt a whole lot better. The Biter might not be in my possession, but it wasn't part of my enemy's arsenal. That had to count for something. And Odin was terrified. Rusty tools, abandoned at the foot of the Norns' carved hall, flashed through my memory. I smiled—

And Rangrid shuddered.

I glanced into her eyes and a plan took form. "Rangrid, I'm going to ask you a question—and you'd better think very, very carefully before you answer. I'm here for one reason. I doubt I have to tell you what. Odin murdered your grandson, maybe even your son and your husband—are they here, too?" I asked abruptly.

The flinch in her eyes was all the answer I needed.

"Dammit, he's killing the whole world. All nine of them. No more. I'm going to stop him. One way or another. If you support him, then you'd better leave right now. But if you aren't lying to me... Well, last night you were the one who pointed out you're not like him, right around the time you started gushing about honor. Just now..."

What could I possibly say about just now?

"You've put up with his bullshit longer than anybody should ever have to. If I were in your place, I'd want his head on a platter, for what he's done to your family, not to mention all the other people he's murdered—yes, dammit, murdered, don't pretend it's anything else."

She closed her lips over a protest she didn't finish.

"Support me, Rangrid. All I want is a fair chance. For my world."

She stared at me. Then slowly, she lowered the sword. Its point dug into the floor. Maybe my plan was working. When she spoke her voice was so soft I had to strain to catch her words.

"I admired you—wanted you—from the moment you came to his grave. You were... afire. From within. But held so tightly in check..." She shivered. "It terrified me to think what would happen when you let that fire loose. Part of me wanted to see you take on Odin face-to-face; part of me..."

She looked up, met my gaze. "I didn't want you to die, too."

I believed her—despite everything—and felt like a heel. There had been that moment, in her living room, when my gaze had locked with hers... . For a couple of heartbeats, it was almost like I'd never left Oregon. I found, to my intense shock, that I was still willing to die to give this woman—this valkyrie—what she wanted. But not until I'd given Odin what was coming to him.

Rangrid whispered, "My sisters ride for accident victims now. Men who die of poison gases. Earthquake and flood and fire victims. Hel hates us. We—at least I—hate ourselves, what we've become. But what are we to do? Skuld no longer speaks with us, and Ragnarok is upon us, and we are not ready—"

"Would you be ready anyway?"

"Yes, I—"

I interrupted wearily. "Rangrid, you wouldn't be ready if you had another thousand years. Odin's hell-bent on dying in a blaze of glory and gore. He's dragging you and everything else down with him. Do you really want to die with a sword through your guts? Or drown in your own blood from poison, or have Surt's bully boys burn you alive, and do it so fast you still have time to hold your skin as it falls off—"

"Stop!" Rangrid was ashen. "Please, stop, I know what Ragnarok will be like, and I know it's hopeless—"

"Then why keep doing Odin's dirty work?"

She flinched, and didn't answer.

"My God," I said, utterly exasperated, "and they call the human race shortsighted, blind, and stupid."

That earned me a hot glare. "I am not shortsighted, blind, or stupid!"

"Oh?" I asked softly. "Then prove it, Rangrid."

Her voice broke on desperation. "I can't! Ragnarok can't be changed! Odin will die then. Nothing I do can stop him from killing you, because you can't possibly kill him!"

"Yes I can."

I said it quietly, reasonably, with the assurance of unassailable fact.

She stood gulping for several seconds, unable to find words. Finally, she whispered, "How can you know?"

Good question; but I wasn't quitting now. "Because the rules are off. You still don't see it, do you? You went to Skuld for answers, because Odin shouldn't have been able to take Gary from that wreck. Skuld didn't have any answers, because she can't answer. All bets are off. Odin's been operating under free will, and so have you, but you didn't know it. Can you explain why Odin's so scared of me? Just because I might have freed Loki?"

I laughed. It was an ugly sound. "Sorry, Rangrid, it won't wash. If I'm just part of the grand scheme, what's to fear? I'd be just a cog in the wheel—and not a very big cog, at that. No, Rangrid , he's scared because the grand scheme's in tatters around his feet. Odin knows damned well I can kill him. That's why he's stacked the deck so badly against me. You can make the difference. You can do whatever you please, Rangrid, choose whatever side you want, be a loose ca

That really shook her. Rangrid's face went pale, and a tremor came to her hands. Getting a goddess who had thousands of years' worth of conditioning to predestination to swallow free will was tough; getting her to swallow treason was tougher. But then, treason always has been defined by the wi

I did sympathize with her. I knew how I'd feel if some green-horned, mealy-mouthed little alien showed up and tried to convince me that the law of gravity had stopped working—and calmly invited me to jump off the western rim of the Grand Canyon just to see for myself. I also knew exactly how I'd felt the day that slimy little German bastard had offered me ten thousand dollars for our code book.

I'd put him in the hospital. Then I'd reported him. Last I'd heard, he was still in prison. At least Rangrid didn't look like she pla

"If," I continued very gently, "what you said about the final battle being so close at hand is true, then you've got precious little time left to make a decision. You can either die stupidly—uselessly—with Odin, or you can do something about him. I know I sound crazy as hell. But what in the world do you think drove me to go through all the agony I went through to get here? It took me weeks to convince myself, and I started out with an even bigger handicap than yours—I didn't even believe Odin was real."

Her lips quirked in a ghost of her former smile.

"The more I learned—and the more times Odin tried to kill me—the angrier I got, until the only sane thing I could do was find him, and stop him. Somebody has to stop him, Rangrid. It's a whole new, unpredictable ballgame out there; and the way he's ru

She studied my face earnestly, and chewed at one thumbnail for a moment. Then stared at the thumb self-consciously and dropped her hand to her side.

"Go on, please," she said very quietly.

I drew a deep breath. "Rangrid, if you can't—or won't—stand up to one outdated old tyrant, then you don't deserve to survive, either. He may well kill me out there today. Hell, he might kill me so fast, I won't even have time to yell. But I'll go down kicking and biting every step of the way. And I'll try to rip out his throat with my teeth as I die, because I know how desperately he's got to be stopped. And if I win..."