فصل 14

Four Million Channels and There’s Still Nothing On Except Valkyrie Vision

HOORAY FOR GOING LAST.

I was relieved when the presentations started with einherjar at the other end of the table…until I saw what the other newbies had done to get into Valhalla.

Helgi called, “Lars Alhstrom!”

A heavyset blond guy rose with his Valkyrie. Lars was so nervous he knocked over his goblet, splashing magic mead all over his crotch. A wave of laughter rippled through the hall.

Helgi smiled. “As many of you know, Captain Gunilla has been phasing in new equipment over the past few months. She’s been fitting her Valkyries’ armor with cameras to keep everyone accountable—and hopefully to keep us entertained!”

The warriors cheered and banged their mugs, drowning out the sound of Sam cursing next to me.

Helgi raised his goblet. “I present to you, Valkyrie Vision!”

Around the tree trunk, a ring of giant holographic screens flickered to life, floating in midair. The video was choppy, apparently taken from a camera on the shoulder of a Valkyrie. We were high in the air, circling over the scene of a sinking ferry in a gray sea. Half the lifeboats dangled sideways from their cables. Passengers jumped overboard, some without life vests. The Valkyrie swooped in closer. The video’s focus sharpened.

Lars Ahlstrom scrambled along the tilting deck, a fire extinguisher in his hands. The door to the inside lounge was blocked by a large metal container. Lars struggled to move it, but it was too heavy. Inside the lounge, a dozen people were trapped, banging desperately on the windows.

Lars shouted something to them in…Swedish? Norwegian? The meaning was clear: GET BACK!

As soon as they did, Lars smashed the extinguisher against the window. On the third try, it shattered. Despite the cold, Lars stripped off his coat and laid it across the broken glass.

He stayed at the window until the last passengers were safely out. They ran for the lifeboats. Lars picked up the fire extinguisher again and started to follow, but the ship lurched violently. His head slammed into the wall and he slid down, unconscious.

His body began to glow. The Valkyrie’s arm appeared in the frame, reaching out. A shimmering golden apparition rose from Lars’s body—his soul, I guessed. Golden Lars took the Valkyrie’s hand, and the video screens went dark.

All around the feast hall, warriors cheered.

At the head table, the thanes debated among themselves. I was close enough to hear some of it. One guy—Lord Nelson?—questioned whether a fire extinguisher could count as a weapon.

I leaned toward Sam. “Why does that matter?”

She tore her bread into smaller and smaller pieces. “To get into Valhalla, a warrior must die in battle with a weapon in his or her hand. That’s the only way.”

“So,” I whispered, “anyone could get into Valhalla if they just grabbed a sword and died?”

She snorted. “Of course not. We can’t have kids taking up weapons and dying on purpose. There’s nothing heroic about suicide. The sacrifice, the bravery has to be unplanned—a genuine heroic response to a crisis. It has to come from the heart, without any thought of reward.”

“So…what if the thanes decide that a newbie shouldn’t have been picked? Does he go back to being alive?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.

Sam wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Once you’re an einherji, there’s no going back. You might get the worst work assignments. You might have a hard time earning respect. But you stay in Valhalla. If the thanes rule the death unworthy…well, the Valkyrie takes the punishment for that.”

“Oh.” Suddenly I understood why all the Valkyries at our table looked a little tense.

The thanes took a vote among themselves. They agreed unanimously that the fire extinguisher could count as a weapon and Lars’s death could be seen as in combat.

“What greater enemy is there than the sea?” said Helgi. “We find Lars Ahlstrom worthy of Valhalla!”

More applause. Lars almost fainted. His Valkyrie held him up while smiling and waving at the crowd.

When the noise died down, Helgi continued. “Lars Ahlstrom, do you know your parentage?”

“I—” The newcomer’s voice cracked. “I never knew my father.”

Helgi nodded. “That is not uncommon. We will seek wisdom from the runes, unless the All-Father wishes to intercede.”

Everyone turned toward the unoccupied throne. The ravens ruffled their feathers and squawked. The throne remained empty.

Helgi didn’t look surprised, but his shoulders slumped with disappointment. He motioned toward the fire pit. From a cluster of servers and cooks, a lady in a green hooded robe shuffled forward. Her face was hidden in the shadows of her cowl, but judging from her stooped posture and her gnarled hands, she must have been ancient.

I murmured to Sam, “Who’s the Wicked Witch?”

“A vala. A seer. She can cast spells, read the future, and…other stuff.”

The vala approached our table. She stopped in front of Lars Alhstrom and pulled a leather pouch from the folds of her robe. She plucked out a handful of runestones like the ones in Uncle Randolph’s study.

“And the runes?” I whispered to Sam. “What are they for?”

“They’re the old Viking alphabet,” she said, “but each letter also symbolizes something powerful—a god, a type of magic, a force of nature. They’re like the genetic code of the universe. The vala can read the stones to see your fate. The greatest sorcerers, like Odin, don’t even need to use the stones. They can manipulate reality simply by speaking the name of a rune.”

I made a mental note to avoid Odin. I didn’t need my reality manipulated any further.

In front of our table, the vala muttered something under her breath. She cast the stones at her feet. They landed on the dirt floor—some faceup, some facedown. One rune in particular seemed to catch everyone’s attention. The holographic screens projected its image to everyone in the hall.

The mark meant nothing to me, but hundreds of warriors shouted with approval.

“Thor!” they cried. Then they started to chant, “THOR, THOR, THOR!”

Sam grunted. “As if we need another child of Thor.”

“Why? What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing. They’re great. Gunilla over there…she’s a daughter of Thor.”

“Oh.”

The Valkyrie captain was smiling, which was even scarier than her scowl.

As the chanting subsided, the vala raised her withered arms. “Lars, son of Thor, rejoice! The runes say you shall fight well at Ragnarok. And tomorrow, in your first combat, you shall prove your valor and be decapitated!”

The audience cheered and laughed. Lars suddenly looked very pale. That just made the warriors laugh harder, as if decapitation were a hazing ritual no worse than a wedgie. The vala gathered her runes and retreated while Lars’s Valkyrie helped him back into his seat.

The ceremony continued. Next up was a newcomer named Dede. She’d saved a bunch of kids at her village school when a warlord’s soldiers had tried to kidnap them. She’d flirted with one of the soldiers, tricked him into letting her hold his assault rifle, then turned it on the warlord’s men. She was killed, but her selfless act gave the other kids time to get away. The video was pretty violent. The Vikings loved it. Dede got a standing ovation.

The vala read the runes. She confirmed that Dede’s parents were regular mortals, but nobody seemed to mind that. According to Dede’s fortune, she would fight valiantly at Ragnarok. Over the next week she would lose her arms several times in combat. Within a hundred years she would rise to the thanes’ table.

“Oooooo!” the crowd murmured appreciatively.

The other four newcomers were equally impressive. They’d all saved people. They’d sacrificed their lives bravely. Two were mortals. One was a son of Odin, which caused a minor commotion.

Sam leaned toward me. “Like I said, Odin has not been seen in quite a while. We welcome any sign that he still moves among mortals.”

The last newcomer was a daughter of Heimdall. I wasn’t sure who that was, but the Vikings seemed impressed.

My head was swimming from too much information. My senses were on fire from too much mead. I didn’t even realize we’d reached the end of the table until Helgi called my name.

“Magnus Chase!” he bellowed. “Rise and impress us with your courage!”