Chapter Nineteen: Party In Valhalla
There are upsides to being drafted into the Last War. Always good company in the halls of the gods.
Kim was the first to arrive in Mimr’s Pub, finding the gods’ hangout empty save for Freyja’s two cats, which were presently curled up together on the couch. She didn’t mind the solitude, relieved to have a moment to herself.
She sat at the nearest table and poured a glass of golden mead from a clear jar, drinking it in silence. Kim had been born into a large family and was usually happy to be part of a large group, but day after day of constant proximity to other people in ever-changing, always stressful conditions was wearing on her patience. She was much relieved to feel her irritation fade the moment the mead touched her lips, and pleased when Schwartz got up trotted over to rub against her ankles.
She heard a crack behind her and Kim twisted to see Timur and Patrick arrive. Like her, they needed to fall into a seat and drink some mead before they felt fit to interact with anyone else.
“Please don’t leave too soon,” Kim told them before she realized these words hadn’t originated from her own mind. “Yarielis and Loucas will return within the hour, and Eryn should be here soon.”
“Huh?” Patrick squinted at her over his cup. “Kim, you only just got here. Unless they left the instant before we came, how do you know… oh wait, those magic cats. Looks like you and Yari have something in common.”
Kim shook her head resignedly, having completely forgotten that the felines were supposed to be able to pass messages between the friends. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this reality,” Kim muttered, reaching down to stroke Schwartz’ tail nonetheless. “It’s been days, and I still can’t make myself accept this is all actually happening to us.”
“If it weren’t for the pain in all my muscles,” Patrick grunted, “I wouldn’t either. Lately I feel like I’m a passenger in my own body.”
“That dissociation will fade,” Timur said, finishing his first mead mug. “Or at least, you get used to it. My therapist once told me that our sense of place in the universe is a kind of fairy tale anyway. An illusion we weave around ourselves to get by. Fortunately, in tough times, it slowly gets re-wired.”
“Don’t I know it,” Kim grimaced. “I already can’t look at a building or even bush and not wonder if a bad guy or a bomb is hidden there. And I catch myself thinking about what fire support to call on if I have to find out. None of this feels even the slightest bit normal, guys. I’m not sure it ever will.”
“And how about the divine aspects?” Patrick laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “These gods, and all of that metaphysical nonsense? Or maybe I shouldn’t call it nonsense… this is their place. Probably shouldn’t show too much disrespect.”
“I don’t get the sense they much care,” Timur shrugged. “Step back and think about it: if a shred of what they’ve been saying is true, then they think about the universe very differently than we do. Everything we see and hear in this place is like, part of a kind of grand communication… or something to that effect. I had some fancy words all worked out back during the last training session, but lost them all somewhere along the line.”
There came another crack and flash, and Eryn stood in front of her doorway, face grim and tired. She collapsed onto the bench next to Kim and started drinking mead without sparing them a glance. Kim smiled to herself, knowing exactly how she felt.
Kim had downed the better part of another full mug of mead when Yari and Loucas arrived. Both looked slightly ill, and shuffled over to sit across from Eryn and Kim.
“Food please,” Yari mumbled out loud. “Bacon, spinach, tomato, and avocado sandwiches.”
Kim’s eyes popped to see the food appear out of nowhere. “Hold on… I didn’t… you mean all we have to do is ask and it appears? How did I not know this?”
She didn’t wait for Yari to nod, and neither did Timur or Patrick, so famished were the trio by their training. A bowl filled with spicy meat and noodles appeared, and Kim set to eating right away.
“Yeah,” Yari replied with a full mouth, “it’s pretty cool. No idea how it works. Freyja told me the pub is connected to the Valhalla kitchens. The bacon is supposed to be the best in all the cosmos, or at least that’s what Freyr says.”
“Burgers aren’t bad either,” Timur mumbled, already halfway through his own.
They ate together while taking turns telling of what they had seen and done in the days since the six had last been together. The mood darkened as time passed, the friends only now beginning to fully appreciate the full magnitude of the trouble they were all in.
“Soldiers of the gods,” Timur muttered at last. “One minute we’re just normal people, and the next… it’s my very own personal nightmare. Only you are all stuck sharing it.”
“I used to want to know more about how the universe worked,” Loucas laughed grimly. “But I’ll tell you, if this is the truth of it, I’m not pleased. Frankly, now I almost wish I didn’t know at all.”
“I just never realized how bad the future could be,” Yari said softly, stroking Weiss, who had just jumped onto the table. “By the century we’re in things are really sad. Most people exiled to space, rich people running an interplanetary dictatorship… no wonder some have decided to rebel.”
“Worse than most of the world having gone to war,” Kim grimaced, “in a decade we all were supposed to live to see? If the United States is in ruins, I’m not sure I want to know about the rest of the world.”
“The past isn’t so great either, you know,” Eryn’s said, face twisting with disgust. “Need I remind you that I have been dealing with actual Nazis?”
“Does the moral component of the whole situation less of a factor, though,” Patrick suggested. “One of the few universals in life is that Nazis are bad. And should be punched whenever they start doing Nazi things in public.”
“That did make my choices pretty clear,” Eryn smiled slightly. “I guess if there’s a world where you have the opportunity to and don’t try to kill Hitler, you are wrong. I only wish in my case this didn’t wind up having such awful consequences for the cosmos.”
“If what we’re being told is even true,” Kim pointed out. “There could easily be, and probably are, things we’re not being told.”
“Obviously,” Loucas said. “considering we’re dealing with godlike beings, even if they aren’t technically divine or anything along those lines. They have to know a lot about the universe we can hardly begin to understand.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Kim sighed. “And I dislike being so blind, especially considering the stakes for ourselves, to say nothing of the rest of the cosmos. Still, these gods, or whoever they are, have been kind to us.”
“We’re definitely all only still alive because of them,” Eryn nodded.
“Agreed,” Kim said, “I’m just saying we should still be a little cautious. We have to keep in mind that all we can truly rely on in this crazy fever dream gone wrong is us. Even if for now we go along with this Einherjar thing.”
“Since there isn’t much else we can do anyway,” Patrick’s shoulders slumped. “Run away, I’d like to say, but to where? And what? In my, Timur, and Kim’s case, other versions of ourselves might be alive out there somewhere. I do not want to find out what happens if we somehow meet.”
“All we can do is keep pushing forward,” Eryn said. “There has to be a way through this, there just… has to.”
They nodded as a group, then the six friends fell silent, each pondering their strange fate while finishing their meal. The two cats kept them company, entertaining them by acting out a play-fight before suddenly dashing off down a hallway behind the bar.
“There is one tiny upside to all of this,” Eryn said then, standing up suddenly. “And it’s… ah, I have to show you. It’s too weird and wonderful to explain in words. Luckily, we all have plenty of time for once. Follow me behind the bar, if you will be so kind. It isn’t far.”
“Lead on, Eryn,” Timur said rather warily. “Just, not into another volcano, okay?”
Kim could tell that jibe smarted, but rather than launching a return sally Eryn only shook her head and led them down the hallway. A few steps in she stopped and pointed to a nondescript wooden door, then opened it and leapt through with a grin, waving at them before quickly pulling it shut behind. In the brief moment it was open, Kim felt a gust of warm air and a booming sound like hundreds of voices stamping their feet and singing at once.
Curious, as instructed Kim followed her friend through the door. The moment she crossed the threshold another wave of noise and heat struck her so fiercely Kim’s eyes slammed shut in alarm. Part of her was certain in that instant another nuclear bomb had gone off. But when she opened them again, after taking several steps in total shock, Kim discovered herself standing next to a long wooden bench in the middle of a vast hall lit by bright flickering torches and filled with revelers.
Kim blinked as a man flew over her head, arms and legs flailing, managing a semi-miraculous landing on a wooden table just to her right. She was sure there had to be thousands of people in the hall, most of them cheering and shouting as more bodies came leaping and spinning through the air. Yet despite their numbers it was not difficult to move around except where a group congregated, usually forming a circle around two or more Einherjar doing something bold and dangerous, seemingly as part of an ever-escalating series of dares.
“New Einherjar!” Kim heard a roaring voice shout from beyond the nearest table. “Welcome to Valhalla! We were waiting for you to find your way here to join us!”
She and her friends turned to stare up at the enormous god Thor, who stood at the center of a circle of Einherjar with mugs of ale raised over his shoulders. Grinning, he poured the contents of each down his gullet with such speed they were empty in a twinkling, somehow allowing only a few rogue trickles to spill out and pour through his bushy beard.
“How long were you keeping this under wraps, Eryn?” Timur exclaimed, eyes glinting in the blazing firelight. “Val-hall itself! The home of the slain, where chosen heroes live in bliss until the end? The single best thing in all of Norse Mythology is actually real? Why oh why do I have to go back to reality at all?”
“Still have a job to do, Einherjar,” the goddess Idunn winked, swinging by while clasped tightly in the arms of a burly Einherjar as the two danced to a tune struck up by a nearby group of Einherjar musicians with strangely modern-looking instruments. “But even as you are expected to work hard,” Idunn called as she and her partner spun away, “the gods do ensure you get to play even harder, for as long as time itself may last!”
“Come on,” Eryn smiled to her bewildered friends. “Now we get the kind of spring break party I should have led you all too. There are some cool Einherjar I’d like you to meet, and I know everyone here will be happy to talk to you!”
Eryn led them to a table, and sitting there for what seemed like hours they told the assembled heroes of humanity their story. An ever-shifting circle of Einherjar clustered around them, the warriors of the gods alternating between listening in rapt attention and cheering at parts they particularly liked before moving on to join some other activity or even sit alone by a fire, lost in their own thoughts.
And more joined this last group as time went by, and those assembled realized what the six friends’ tale meant. Even this seemingly eternal place was now at risk, the grand catastrophe long foretold quite clearly now well underway.
Kim remained oddly distracted, struggling as much with the implications of what she was seeing all around her as the deadly peril of total cosmic annihilation. Einherjar challenged each other to feats of skill and wit as far as her eyes could see, many continued leaped from table to table, often breaking out in riotous songs that reminded her very much of a Bollywood musical. Their carefree abandon was infectious, largely enthralling her friends, but Kim couldn’t quite bring herself to set her cares aside.
“Ah, people, they do enjoy being loud, don't they?” Kim a voice speak in her ear, and turning saw a woman sit down quietly on the bench next to her.
“I guess they just like to have fun,” Kim muttered. “I can’t blame them that, even if my mood isn’t right for a party. I’m Kim Wen. And you are?”
“Ah, snipers, they do enjoy complaining about other people, don't they?” Kim heard another Einherjar ask before the woman could answer. He stood with his arms folded a step behind the woman’s back, shaking his head.
“Lyudmyla Pavlichenko,” the woman gestured to herself. “And the one who likes to interrupt is Ira Hayes. As I expect you are finding out for yourself, front line grunts rarely appreciate the foibles of the common person.”
“Nah,” Hayes winked, “we learn to love ‘em. Life is too short, after all, to bother questioning what others choose to do with their own. As it turns out, this is true even for immortal warriors of the gods. It seems immortality has to end someday.”
Kim looked to her left and right, then sighed and shook her head. A wry smile, or maybe grimace, she couldn't tell, spread unbidden across her own lips. She grabbed a new mug of ale from the table and downed it in a long steady gulp, finding the piney taste oddly refreshing.
“I still can't believe that this is the afterlife.” Kim said, stifling a belch. “Though I suppose a big party isn't the worst way to spend eternity, it isn’t at all what I expected on the rare occasions I ever thought about it.”
Pavlichenko and Hayes both laughed. “It certainly isn't!” Pavlichenko replied, holding a mug over her head until it suddenly refilled. “Yet with the onset of Fimbulwinter and the countdown to Ragnarok having begun, time is indeed short for all beings, so even this grand adventure alongside the old gods must soon come to an end. Therefore, lets not waste too many words on things that can't be changed, shall we? Save the fight for tomorrow, for the war will always be waiting. Tonight, we party!”
Kim laughed despite herself, tilting her head. “No argument from me there, though I am still surprised that you don't seem more upset about it. The Ragnarok, part I mean. Am I seeing only one aspect of you, like with the gods? Is there another version who is huddled away somewhere, frozen in fear?”
Pavlichenko shook her head. “No, it isn't the same for Einherjar as it is for Aesir and Vanir. Or Aelfar, Svartaelfar, Jotnar, Muspelli, or anyone else from outside Midgard. With us, once here in Asgard, what you see is what you get! A human soul is refracted across the Threads of reality, yet once chosen as Einherjar this self becomes the primary one all others join with.”
“Although,” she said philosophically, “as an essential part of being Einherjar is the fact that we all remember all our different lives, I suppose in any given moment you do kind of only see one aspect. The version most closely matched to the lived reality of the present, you might say.”
“That is true of any person, though,” Hayes shook his head, “even while alive. Everyone is different from day to day, shaped and changed by the sum total of their experiences. We Einherjar just have more days available to remember than someone who cannot perceive their alternate selves and all they went through in life.”
A raucous cheer broke out from the thousands of Einherjar assembled in the hall. Kim turned in time to see a wide door in the nearest wall swing open, revealing a wide stair leading up to an archway. Odin walked through it, waving and smiling, gray beard and floppy hat somehow making his missing eye stand out more than it normally did. Past him flew two birds, both large and black, and a pair of wolves trailed a pace behind his booted feet.
After Odin and his animals came Freyja with her cats, Weiss and Schwartz, only rather than the housecat sized beasts Kim had seen before now they were the size of leopards. Kim hadn't really ever realized before just how dangerous a housecat looked when scaled up to big-cat size, and when the cats turned to gaze at her she understood what prey creatures must feel like.
Odin waved to Kim and her friends, then disappeared into a crowd of cheering Einherjar. Freyja on the other hand walked right up to their table, cats stalking along behind. With an excited squeak, Yari leapt up from her seat next to Loucas, ran straight at Schwartz, and threw her arms around his furry neck.
The gigantic house cat stood there like a happy lion as Yari stroked the beast's long fine hair. Weiss walked up to Yari and began licking her poofy hair, then rubbed an unnervingly large shoulder against her, nearly knocking her onto the floor.
“I am pleased my cats showed you the door to Val-Hall!” Freyja said, eyes shining almost as brilliantly as her torso. Rather than the gown Kim and her friends had usually seen Freyja wearing, now she was dressed as a warrior. Scale armor, row after row of delicately carved plates made out of a material that shone like silver encased her from throat to thigh, and a sword hung at her side to complement the bow on her back.
Freyja noticed Kim looking her up and down, then glanced down, seeming surprised. “Oh! I forgot to change,” Freyja laughed. “Oh well! Here you see me as I am when dressed for battle in the ancient human style. Today Odin and I were observing a rather epic fight waged in a version of Earth, some thousand years before your time, between a band of pagans and a crusading religious army. A very tragic day for both sides, but a good one for selecting new Einherjar! We had quite the pick, the old raven-wrangler and I.”
“Everyone here was picked by you or Odin?” Kim asked.
“Yes,” Freyja nodded. “Well, aside from you six, but as we discussed you lot represent a special case. In all other cases, Odin takes the achievers, I take the lovers. Though in truth there is a great deal of crossover between the two, so it is better to say that we take the best humans we can find, ranking them each in our own way.”
“And don’t people you bring have to die in battle?” Kim said, looking over to get confirmation from Timur and discovering he had wandered off with a group of Einherjar to watch a confusing sort of dance-off between two teams of soldiers, one in the garb of Mongolian khans, the other, Norse vikings. “I… could swear Timur told us that the other day. Or was it that Sandra Chavez lady back at Yellowstone. Oddly enough, she’s into the Norse gods too.”
“Life is a battle,” Freyja laughed. “Every day you mortals struggle to sustain your biology against the forces of nature. Do not be led astray by literal interpretations of the old stories. The ancients of your kind spoke more often in metaphor, and as life in Midgard is a kind of war, so all death comes in battle.”
“But I admit we are most selective in who we choose to call our halls home. There are precious few who attract our attention across the many threads of reality. And despite our different tastes, Odin and I quite often actually have to have a little fight over who gets to claim someone. Rommel over there was one such case.”
Freyja grinned fiercely, baring her teeth. “Ah, I do always enjoy beating Odin at his own favorite game, as I did with the Desert Fox. Certainly he was a great general, by human standards, across most Threads where he was born with the opportunity to prove himself. But where Odin wished to claim him for his prowess in the face of steep odds while hindered by inadequate resources, I was more interested in his moral character. As you might recall from your history, Erwin Rommel dies because of his adoration for and dedication to his family.”
“As a famous general of wartime Germany he was always doomed to earn the hatred of Adolf Hitler, who could never stand anyone more popular than him. And as Hitler's madness wound down to its inevitable conclusion, he began to lash out at anyone and everyone. Family meant nothing to him except as a weakness to exploit, and so he threatened Rommel’s when time came to dispense with a man who seemed to pose a threat. The Field Marshal chose to take poison to protect his family from Hitler's wrath, and act that greatly moved me. I value those whose greatness stems from their love of others. Who put their skills to work, or at least try to, for the good of something greater.”
Kim looked at the women sitting to either side of her. “So, tell me about Pavlichenko and Hayes, here. Who chose each of them?”
“I'm one of Odin's.” Pavlichenko said proudly. “One of the best snipers in world history in any Thread of reality. Glory to Ukraine!”
“Glory to the heroes!” Kim heard a thousand Einherjar shout in thundering reply to her toast.
“I'm one of Freyja's,” Hayes nodded. “She thought I was special because I never stopped caring about the men who died by my side. Only reason I fought at all was them, in fact. Pima, American, didn’t matter on Iwo Jima. It was hell on Earth, and we witnessed it together.”
“And after she chose you,” Kim said, “you came here? Like, carried by a valkyrie?”
“They show the way, yes,” Hayes nodded, “in the last moments of your life, they often appear as angelic beings dressed in gold armor, though this is far from the truth of their actual selves. They take you by the hand, and suddenly you stand at the threshold of Asgard, the great golden gate and path beyond that divides into the roads leading to Odin’s hall Valhalla and Freyja’s, Folkvangr.”
“There you meet your ancestors who have come before,” Pavlichenko added, “and they lead you to the gate where Odin or Freyja greets each new Einherjar in person and brings them to the eternal feast. In the days that follow come your training phase, as other selves die in their own threads, one by one, and merge into the self that is already here, their memories merging with your own until you finally become truly whole.”
“And after that,” Kim blinked, feeling tired despite the effects of the mead, “you spend all the time until Ragnarok fighting by day and partying by night? I think that’s what Timur said about the afterlife according to the Eddas.”
“More or less,” Hayes laughed. “Although you make it sound so boring and repetitive! Remember that we have an entire universe and multiple realities to explore, places where the gods have walked and so our going for a peek at what was does no harm. Also remember that fighting is also a metaphor, as one can struggle against foes physical, personal, or even ideological.”
“Oh no, more metaphors and philosophy?” Kim moaned. “Isn't there anything consistent and just, well, real, in all the universe?”
Freyja smiled. “Metaphors and philosophy are all just part of communicating about what is reliably consistent, and therefore scientifically real, at least in Midgard. Minds struggling to bridge the cosmic gap and come to a greater understanding of the laws of nature they are subjected to. People decide what is real, updating their beliefs when presented with compelling new information. Reality itself is ever-shifting, only truly bounded by the death of existence.”
“It still hurts my head,” Kim sighed, holding up her mug until it refilled with drink. “But at least it sounds like this afterlife isn’t just sitting on a cloud with a harp or something dull like that. It’s almost more like… having more life.”
“A good way to look at it,” Hayes nodded. “Here in Valhalla, located at the junction between Midgard and Asgard, we are almost completely free. We can do whatever we want, each and every day, choosing how best to prepare ourselves for the Last Battle ahead, with no limits.”
“And until that day comes, we have all the food and drink and shelter a human could ever hope for. And many of our loved ones end up here too. Have you any idea how wonderful it is to see old friends and members of your family, healed of all the wounds and cares of the world, given the opportunity to realize their full potential as human beings? To know the very best version of themselves, and have a seeming eternity to spend time with them?”
“Even better for some,” Pavlichenko laughed gaily, “pets come to Asgard too! And they too become more here than they could ever be in life, constrained as they are by the material realities of Midgard.”
Kim thought about that for a minute, looking around at the throng. “I suppose the afterlife isn't so bad. Although I get the feeling that a lot of religious people get a big surprise when they wake up here. Assuming there isn’t some place just for them?”
Lyudmyla shrugged. “Most of the faithful I regularly talk to have come to the conclusion that this place is a sort of middle-space between life and death, a kind of purgatory. It feels exactly the same as being alive, after all, even the days when we get killed again. Fortunately, after its over you wake up healed and ready to go again, if a bit sore for a few days.”
“How many Einherjar are there?” Kim asked.
“There are at least a thousand doors in Val-Hall,” Freyja said, “each wide enough for a thousand Einherjar to march through side by side at the same time. Yet to empty Valhalla would take at least an hour, and that's just Odin's bit of real estate here in Asgard. Folkvangr is structured a little differently, but has just as many residents. We’ve never bothered to keep track, but many millions of Einherjar share eternity with us... for as long as it may last.”
“Still,” Freyja said sadly, “we will be hard-pressed, and there will still be far too few of us, to win the day in the Last Battle. So we as well as our Einherjar actually do quite a bit of non-metaphorical fighting to prepare, and together we go on missions into other worlds and where in Midgard it is necessary to walk. Fortunately, Idunn's nectar keeps everyone hale and hearty and immortal.”
Kim sat silently for a long while, wondering if she and her friends had actually survived that cave in Iceland. It wasn't necessarily, at least in theory, that she minded being dead if this was actually the afterlife. But discovering that the afterlife also had a time limit was very disconcerting, especially when the countdown to its total destruction had begun.
Kim turned her head to see Freyja staring directly at her. Sometimes, for a fleeting instant, looking into one of these gods’ eyes reminded her that something far deeper and infinitely more knowledgeable lay behind their gaze. Kim didn't know why, she only knew how she felt. And she had learned early on in life to trust her instincts. Even if they were not always correct, they were rarely entirely wrong.
“Yes, I think you may be one of mine, in the end.” Freyja said, her voice now quiet and thoughtful. “Clever, but also caring. You don't entirely accept what is happening to you and your friends, do you?”
Kim remained quiet for a long moment, staring back into Freyja's eyes. She was hesitant to speak, disturbed by the god’s keen perception.
“No.” she finally answered. “I don't. But I’m starting to see that it doesn't matter. At least not at the moment. I may change my mind about that later, though.”
“Good! Me too!” exclaimed Freyja, bright and cheerful again. “I change my mind often. It irritates Odin greatly, but my beloved Odde is the only man I ever cared to obey, so Allfather can bite me if the old Asa-god doesn’t like it.”
“And oh, look!” Freyja cried, suddenly distracted by a flurry of movement a ways down the table. “Huginn and Muninn, Odin's ravens, are picking a fight with Schwartz and Weiss again. Good times! My cats love to dismember irritating carrion birds. Get 'em, kitties! Slash them, bite them, kill them! Show no mercy, my slayers, they’ll reincarnate in a few hours! Teach Odin’s cocky birds a lesson they won’t soon forget!”
Freyja stood up and jumped onto the table to join Thor and a pack of Einherjar in stomping and rooting for the cats. The floor shook as Kim watched in awe as Freyja’s leopard-sized house cats reared up on their hind paws, whacking furiously at two enormous black birds that cawed and squawked as they darted through the air just out of the felines’ reach.
All the nearby Einherjar were jumping and cheering and whooping at the spectacle as Odin sat on a thronelike chair that had been placed on top of the next table over. For his part, the one-eyed god acted the part of a wizened old referee at a very strange fight, and he was clearly biased: he was shouting curses at the cats and cheering on the birds whenever they dodged a swat.
Freyja raced over and jumped across the tables to stand next to Odin’s chair, sword drawn, shouting challenges and threats at the swooping ravens and encouragement to her massive battle cats. The animals redoubled the intensity of their contest, and Kim heard an eagle screech somewhere high above while two wolves howled as the combatants became blurs.
Kim watched befuddled for a long while, then saw her friends grinning and cheering along with the rest of the crowd. And in that instant, her mood lifted. She looked down at the mug of mead in her hand and drained it in a long gulp. Kim stood up, and walked over to join her friends.
There are times in life when an insight comes unbidden and with such overwhelming force a sane mind can’t ignore its call. This was one of those for Kim, and staring at the spectacle of gods and Einherjar in Valhalla she knew deep down in her soul a simple, abiding truth:
She and her friends had no other option. To survive, they had to become true Einherjar. Warriors sworn to the gods, until the bitter end.
Which, by all accounts, was coming very, very soon.
End of Book One
The Saga Continues in Bringing Ragnarok: Book Two