Ragnarok 03 - Resonance (26 page)

The sword, more than a millennium old, seemed to be in a display case, no doubt a museum, but the photographer had been careful to exclude any clues as to which museum, or even which country, it might be in. And yet it was not the physical object but the runic word upon it that resonated with Gavriela—

So brave, my Wolf.

—and that was upsetting because it was surely what the anonymous donor intended, and she could not think of anyone but Dmitri Shtemenko who would play with her mind that way. After a day's thought, she decided to share it with Rupert, because she did not like the coincidence of Dmitri's being in the country – him or someone working for him – at the same time that Ursula was pregnant.

‘You said he considered Ursula a possession.' Rupert was sitting with legs crossed in his high-backed armchair. ‘Not a stepdaughter he loved, but something he owned. That we had stolen from him.'

‘I was biased against the idea of him defecting, because I
didn't trust him not to play a double game.' Gavriela was in the matching chair, at an angle to the fireplace, sitting upright because she could not relax. ‘It may have shaded my perceptions. But I think I was correct, in terms of how he felt about Ursula.'

The knowledge that Rupert was officially retired hung between them.

‘I'll make a phone call,' he said after a minute.

‘Thank you.'

There was nothing to do but increase whatever security and surveillance was around Ursula. The details were up to others, far outside Gavriela's purview and even – these days – Rupert's.

‘You remember when you sent me to the States?' she said then.

His lean form tightened. He had sent her in wartime across the dangerous Atlantic – pregnant, though no one knew that, not even Gavriela – to visit Los Alamos for legitimate reasons but also to get her away from Brian, her one night stand, his long term secret lover.

‘The FBI man,' she said, softening her voice, ‘called Payne, who showed me around, also taught me some New York slang. Noo Yoik,' she added, ‘including “doing a Brody”, meaning to take a dive off a bridge, suicidally.'

Rupert shook his head.

‘Damnable,' was all he said.

The ‘Americanisation' – itself a hated term – of the English language was something he detested, and often said so.

‘I think I mentioned it to Anna once,' said Gavriela. ‘I'm wondering if that's where she got the name from.'

‘Dear Gavi' – he could use her real name here – ‘I really am failing to catch your drift.'

‘My grandson is to be called Brody Gould. Not even his father's surname, you'll note.'

‘Oh, dear.'

‘I feel like killing her. Know any decent assassins, Rupert?'

‘None that you can afford.'

She let out a breath and sank back in the comfortable arm-chair. ‘Just as well.'

‘Speaking of what you can afford . . . The rent on your flat is probably quite steep.'

‘No more than anyone's. What about this place? It must cost a fortune, so it's lucky you have one.'

Rupert's lean face twisted.

‘Not the word I'd use, but I'm comfortably off. As for the house, I own it outright, as did my parents for that matter.'

Without jealousy, Gavriela said, ‘Lucky you.'

‘Yes, I know. And with all those spare bedrooms that Mrs Hooper keeps spotless and no one ever sleeps in. So I was wondering . . .'

This was unusual hesitation for the retired spymaster.

‘ . . .whether you'd care to move in, dear Gavi. With all your science books and whatnot, of course. Slide-rules, kind of thing. Broaden my mind.'

She looked at the shelves of books in here – a small portion of the collection scattered throughout the house – then back at Rupert.

‘I'll move in tomorrow,' she said.

They stared at each other for a moment, then they both nodded.

‘So,' said Rupert, picking up a folded
Times
from the floor. ‘Have you seen today's crossword?'

‘Not yet.'

He retrieved his fountain-pen and unscrewed the cap. No pencil for him: ink meant getting it right first time.

‘Shall we tackle it together?'

‘Yes,' said Gavriela. ‘I think we should.'

THIRTY-EIGHT

MU-SPACE & GALACTIC CORE ENVIRONS, 2606 AD

Bad luck hit the mission early. A squadron of Zajinets was heading along the same trajectory, and perhaps for the same purpose; but that was the problem with a war on two fronts – three if you counted the realspace Anomaly of Fulgor and Siganth – against different hostile forces.
My enemy's enemy is trying to kill me
, thought Roger, as comms burst into life with a command from Nakamura:

++Scatter right high. Plan 7 alpha.++

Roger and ship sent the
ack
signal – acknowledgement – along with everyone else as forty-five vessels split into nine soaring threads that curved around to avoid the energy beams tearing along the geodesic they had been following, and allowed them within seconds to target the Zajinets.

The first ship to explode was a heavy Zajinet vessel, raked by fire from Rhames and the four Pilots forming her wing. But the chase was on through layers of self-similar spacetime contours, fractal fire forking and branching, like living lightning, and in the next few subjective seconds Roger counted thirteen ships exploding, seven of them Pilots including an entire five ship wing.

But the Zajinets were tricky, and several vessels broke away and disappeared into mu-space depths. Seeing that, Nakamura sent the break-off signal, and the thirty-eight surviving Pilots disengaged from the fight and tore off onto a near-hell-flight geodesic that the Zajinets would find it hard to follow, starting as it did from a hugely non-linear volume of turbulence: only continuous inter-vessel comms allowed the Pilots
to keep their ships aligned together and following the same trajectory.

++They might call for reinforcements. Bug-out count-down is now 100 hours from insertion, repeat 100. Copy all?++

Ship and Roger were straining with the effort of flight, but they spared the attention to send an
ack
blip, and presumably the rest of the squadron did likewise because they kept formation and flew harder than ever until Nakamura finally gave the signal to disengage and slip into an easier glide mode, ready for the final insertion.

But this was one of the things that made them special forces: the ability to fly hard, beyond the point where most Pilots and ships would break down, and then without recovery to move into a battle zone and operate better there than ordinary com bat trained ships and Pilots could when fresh.

Insertion.

And the exit into blazing space, filled with a profusion of starlight from the massive population making up the galactic core.

Quiescent and watching, in a warrior's state of not-thought, of
mushin
, they floated, using passive sensors only – no transmission waves to ping against whatever they observed – for their job was reconnaissance, not assault, with the proviso that if they had to fight to get clear, they would bring shock and awe to the renegades, spreading death and confusion as they escaped.

Ordinary Pilots might have seen nothing, but the thirty-eight SRS Pilots and their highly trained ships were able, through stillness and hyper acuity, to observe shapes and movement against the blazing background, to make out patterns that others would not perceive, to piece together the nature of the installation existing here, and the vessels that attended it.

In briefing sessions they had referred to it hypothetically
as Target Shadow, and here it was, not just a figment of the planners' imagination but real and still growing, from what they could see.

The extended construction was vast: a sprawling free-floating militarised base, around which a flock of vessels moved, both realspace shuttles and mu-space ships Piloted by renegades. It was that mixture of Pilot and non-Pilot forces that meant the base had to be situated in realspace – that and the fact that the darkness was of this universe, perhaps more so than humanity, with goals that had nothing to do with mu-space and everything to do with the galactic core, and the thousand lightyear jet that spurted from it, perhaps from the legendary black hole at the exact centre of—

Maybe not.

What do you mean?

Drifting.

No one's been to the very centre, have they?

Not alive. Maybe fragments of wreckage have drifted in.

I wouldn't risk your safety, my love.

Quiet. No signals chatter among the ships.

We're already in danger together, aren't we?

True.

But the countdown continued, one hundred hours steadily diminishing to zero, the bug out time set by Nakamura acting as squadron leader, while Rhames as commander kept to the rear, relinquishing her right to lead – not the way Roger had envisioned combat squadrons operating, not until he joined one – and made no comment, indicating confidence in Nakamura's decision.

Zero.

Stealth meant exiting to mu-space at such a precise angle and energy that spillover radiation was close to nothing, detectible only to someone who knew where to look and what to look for, with the most sensitive of equipment. One by one, the Pilots' ships slipped out of realspace existence and were gone . . .

Ready?

. . .until Roger-and-ship alone remained.

Ready now.

They blasted into mu-space, creating a transition signature that would have lit up the realspace environment like an explosion, even amid the shining light of a billion suns.

Because they were heading into the true core, and it would take force as well as finesse to prevent them breaking apart in the jagged mu-space reefs corresponding to the titanic gravitational swirls of the black hole at the centre, except, except—

I love you.

Yes.

—they burst out into realspace for a fraction of a second, right at the threshold of obliteration, enough to see what they knew they were going to see, and then they ripped away into mu-space once more, turbulence and chaos as they had never experienced –
so hard to fly
– as they twisted around obstacles like coral reefs formed of folded spacetime, hurtled down through spirals of reality –
very hard, but we can do it
– and finally, finally pulled onto a geodesic that with luck would take them clear –
yes
– and they screamed along a trajectory more extreme than a hellflight, a reality-shearing, self-immolating, agonising way to fly for which there was no word, not even in Aeternum; and then they were through, tumbling into a clear golden void which by the standards they had grown used to was simple mu-space, easy to traverse, though its currents were strong.

They coursed into a crimson nebula.

What year will it be when we return to Labyrinth?

I don't know, I really don't.

Even their superlative ability to track distortions had failed during the ultra-hellflight episode that challenged most of what they had learned in Labyrinth about theoretical limits to ship-and-Pilot performance.

But we'll still be able to find Labyrinth.

That will never change.

Their flight was easier now.

And was it worth it?

The Admiralty will think so.

As of this moment, only Roger-and-ship knew that a theory long held by humanity was wrong, in a way that must be linked to the aeons-long engagement with the darkness that, from the point of view of Pilots and non-Pilots alike, could only be considered an extended act of invasion, of cosmic war.

What lay at the galaxy's heart was not a black hole, and perhaps never had been.

How is it that nobody knew?

Good question.

It was not formed of matter at all.

THIRTY-NINE

EARTH, 793 AD

Morning mist failed to cloak the stench of the dead. Slaughtered villagers and holy men, here and there a whimpering survivor – which meant only that their entrance to Hel's realm was delayed for a while – and soon there would be the buzzing of flies and rustling of beetles, unless more people came to burn or bury the folk of the Holy Isle, whose beliefs and sanctity had so clearly failed to save them.

Fenrisulfr led good men.

A woman was moaning from behind a pig-sty, and someone else was breathing heavily, but there was no reason to investigate. Among the drying blood and hardening gore were fresh shoots of green grass, while sparrows squabbled heed-lessly nearby, and the weight of his sword on his hip – he had laid aside his axes for now – with the soft squeak and smell of the leather, were comfortable and pleasing and somehow very new, as if he were seeing the Middle World through a child's eyes.

I lead good men.

It was the thinnest of thoughts, like a dying man's voice.

Stígr felt my vengeance.

And so did all these slaughtered people whom he had never met before, who had never heard of Ulfr's – Fenrisul fr's – home village, or of the poet Jarl slain because of Stígr's machinations, or of Eira, sister to Jarl and
volva
to the clan and everything to the heart of a young warrior and dead, so long dead, because of Stígr's dark sorcery once more, and how was any of this going to bring her back?

It wasn't. Nor would she recognise him, the man he had
become, if she could return, for in a real way Ulfr also had perished a long time ago.

Brökkr and four of his strongest fighters were standing in front of him.

‘Chief. Feels like the morning after.'

‘It does.'

‘Got treasure to take home, but I'm not sure about young Thóllakr's haul. Gold and steel don't eat. Drink blood maybe, but you don't need to carry food for them, is what I mean.'

Fenrisulfr squinted at him. ‘Speak plainly, Brökkr.'

‘There.' Brökkr gestured with a hooked thumb. ‘Got himself a thrall, if you can call it that.'

‘Óthinn's piss,' said Fenrisulfr. ‘I might have known.'

Two of the fighters chuckled, but their smiles were vicious. This was going to cause trouble, and it amused them. And if they were the ones to spill someone's blood, then all the better – at least that was how Fenrisulfr read their thoughts, and he had been a reaver chief for a long time now.

Too long, by the Norns.

That, too, was a new thought.

Thóllakr's bounty was the girl – young woman – who had been tending his wounds when Fenrisulfr had slain Stígr and triggered the Holy Isle's doom, the destruction of those who lived here. Except that Thóllakr had taken this one for his own, and not by force, to judge by the way she clung to Thóllakr's arm and stared down at the ground, avoiding everyone's gaze and clearly wishing they were not here.

Wishes count for nothing.

If they did, then Eira would still be—

Enough.

He forced himself to speak. ‘You're claiming her, is that it?'

‘I am,' said Thóllakr. ‘Her name is Thyra and she's from an inland village and we're— Well, she's under my protection.'

‘Under your hips,' muttered one of the fighters, poking one finger through the fingers of his other hand, and waggling it.

‘When we move inland,' said Fenrisulfr, ‘I want you to
remain behind with the guarding party. And no trouble, Thóllakr. All right?'

‘Yes, chief.'

‘And while you're here, there's a roan gelding by the foundry that I like the look of. I want him looked after for me. Take your thrall, and if she knows how to groom and feed a horse, let her help you. Do it now.'

‘Yes, chief.'

Fenrisulfr looked at Brökkr, thought of spinning on the spot and slamming his heel into Brökkr's liver – the kind of kick that drops a man, leaving him conscious and wishing he were not, because of the pain – but an ambush shot was not the way to deal with a feisty former lieutenant who might be considering a challenge for leadership of Fenrisulfr's people, combining two bands into one. Domination for face had to be overt, against a prepared foe, though sneakiness in a fighter was and always would be a virtue.

‘Walk with me,' he told Thóllakr. ‘Bring the girl.'

The two leering fighters looked at each other, wondering if Fenrisulfr was going to assert his right to take her, either while Thóllakr watched or after Fenrisulfr had beaten him unconscious, assuming he protested. Fenrisulfr noted this but did not comment further, waiting instead until he, Thóllakr and the girl were far from the others. He pointed at the horse, still tied up where it had been.

‘The gelding is strong,' he said. ‘Can carry a decent weight.'

‘Er, yes, chief.'

Fenrisulfr looked at the causeway peeking through the waves, joining the Holy Isle to the mainland. ‘My orders are that you exercise the horse while I'm gone. I'll let the rest of the guarding party know that. When you cross to the mainland,' he added, ‘don't even think about heading west inland, because you'll miss the rest of us, since we're turning south.'

‘Er . . .'

‘Then if you carried on riding, deep into Northanhymbra,
you'd find yourself among strangers, maybe even Thyra's people. And if you ended up staying there, you'd have to learn a new way of speaking, earn a living without killing, and all the rest.'

Thóllakr was swallowing, gripping Thyra's hand hard.

‘In years past,' Fenrisulfr went on, ‘our people ruled here, so they know us. But Erik Bloodaxe is dead these forty summers, and the current king is named Æthelred, one of Thyra's folk.'

Hearing her king's name and her own, the girl stared at him.

‘May the Norns treat you well.' Fenrisulfr clasped Thóllakr's shoulder. ‘And to Hel's realm with them if they don't.'

Finally, Thóllakr grinned.

‘Yes, chief. Thank you.'

Fenrisulfr walked away, pulling his cloak around him.

No looking back.

Brökkr was looking thoughtful when Fenrisulfr returned. Ivarr was with him, in addition to the four fighters from Brökkr's band. Fenrisulfr gestured towards the causeway.

‘We'll cross at low tide. Have you decided who's to be left behind?'

‘I have,' said Brökkr. ‘You want me to run through the names?'

Fenrisulfr shook his head.

‘I trust your judgement on this, as in everything else,' he said. ‘But I would have private words with you, brave Brökkr. By the holy men's fortress?'

‘Er, yes, chief.'

‘Come, then.'

Of course Brökkr was suspicious, but Fenrisulfr, not carrying his axes, spread his hands openly as they walked, keeping to Brökkr's right side, and asked a question in an easy tone just before the pivotal moment, so that Brökkr's mouth was open, his mind and tongue forming the reply – the estimated
distance the raiding party could cover per day – when Fenrisulfr's body slammed into his. Fenrisulfr grabbed Brökkr's sword-hilt at the same time as whipping his head into the side of Brökkr's jaw – a sideways head-butt, almost getting the knockout – and slamming his knee into Brökkr's thigh – no point in trying for the groin because Brökkr was fast even when surprised – and pulling free, drawing his own blade left-handed, a reverse grip but never mind because he had two swords and Brökkr had none, and as Fenrisulfr swung both blades high Brökkr flinched and tried to duck beneath as Fenrisulfr had hoped and this time he drove the knee in with maximum force, smashing into Brökkr's face, then swung his left hand thumb-first and still holding the snatched sword so its hard pommel drove into Brökkr's temple and then he was down.

There was a water-skin nearby, and after giving Brökkr a few moments languishing in dreamworld, Fenrisulfr splashed the water over his bloodied face, and waited while Brökkr coughed himself awake, then glowered at Fenrisulfr.

‘You're already a good leader,' Fenrisulfr told him. ‘And capable of leading my men in addition to your own.'

He had both swords in normal grips now, his wrists and forearms loose and ready.

‘Huh.' Brökkr pushed himself up to a sitting position, knowing better than to rise any further. ‘Not when I let sneaky bastards catch me like that.'

‘Thóllakr and his thrall are under my protection. Swear by Thórr you'll leave them unharmed, and tell your men to do likewise.'

‘Huh? You only have to give the order and we'll—'

‘Swear.'

Brökkr wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand, snorted, then spat a red gob of snot onto the grass. ‘I swear by Thórr's balls that Thóllakr and his woman will go unharmed. Good enough, chief?'

Fenrisulfr shook his head.

‘I'm not your chief.'

‘You're dissolving the alliance? There's no—'

‘I'm making you chief of both our bands,' said Fenrisulfr. ‘You're more than good enough.'

With care, he placed Brökkr's sword flat on the ground.

‘You're not . . . You mean it, Fenrisulfr, don't you?'

Fenrisulfr stared at the sea, so huge and uncaring of mortal affairs, and wondered how he could ever have thought his life was so important.

‘I'm not sure that's my name any more,' he said, more to the waves than to Brökkr.

Without looking back, he walked down to his longboat, beached among the others. He told the men on guard about Thóllakr, that he and his woman were not be harmed and had orders to groom and exercise the roan gelding, across the causeway if Thóllakr wished. There was no hint in his tone that this was a final order.

Then he fetched the crystal tipped spear from on board the longboat, slapped the dragon prow and went off to be by himself until night fell and he could slip away and – Norns permitting, and damn them if they did not – never be seen by his reavers again.

He was thirty-three summers old to the best of his reckoning, stronger and faster than ever, as ruthless as he had to be, with no idea how he wanted to live the rest of his life, except that when he found the opportunity that must be out there, no one would wrest it from him.

They could try, of course.

I'll still need enemies.

What else gave meaning to existence?

From time to time Chief Vermundr thought back to the days when Folkvar ruled the clan, and that young whelp Ulfr had shown so much promise that some people thought he would be made chieftain on Folkvar's death, except that Eira had died and Ulfr had grown crazed and that was that: another
young man gone to travel far, and by now he might be dead or rich, whatever the Norns decreed.

‘She's gone, Father.' His son Vítharr put a hand on Vermundr's shoulder. ‘My mother has passed.'

‘I know.'

They were in the men's longhall, just the two of them, their words strange in the emptiness.

‘I know, my son,' said Vermundr again, his heart hollow.

He stared at the youth, feeling both proud and worried, because Vítharr was taking his mother's death calmly but there was a streak of darkness inside him, and it could surface in cruelty from time to time. And avarice, when wandering storytellers sang of plunder and glory, of warriors founding new domains in the East. Some day Vítharr would take it in his mind to go, and perhaps that would be best for the clan, hard though it was to think so.

In his mind's eye now, Vermundr's beloved Anya came back to him, her spirit reaching out from dreamworld before Hel's dread ship
Naglfar
took her to the Helway, to suffer in Niflheim, Niflhel, for ever.

I love you.

And I you, always.

He had first caught sight of her on entering Chief Snorri's village, as was – on the day Arne became chief unofficially, later to be confirmed ceremonially, for Snorri had been killed in the fighting and only Arne had stepped up to organise the survivors. No one ever raised the subject of how soon Vítharr was born: seven months after Vermundr and Anya began courting, which was two months after they had met. Nor did anyone ever talk about the one eyed poet who had sojourned in the village beforehand, and tricked them into bloody conflict.

There was a cough from the longhall entrance.

‘May I enter?'

It was custom for even a
volva
to ask permission, this being the men's hall, and she was new to the village and therefore
still careful, though Vermundr had met her many years back, when they had been travelling to the Thing, and several times years later when she rode with traders. But last winter she had entered the village on foot, leading a daughter who was three or four summers old, and asked whether they had a
volva
she could talk to.

But there had been no one in that position for a long time, and little by little she had made herself useful, healing and counselling, until Vermundr asked her to move in to the old
volva'
s hut, once occupied by Eira, and Nessa before her.

Now she was here to comfort Vermundr's tortured spirit.

‘Come in, Heithrún,' he said. ‘Come in.'

She came inside and bowed to Vermundr, and nodded care fully to Vítharr.

It was always wise to be careful around him.