Digital divinity, p.19
Digital Divinity, page 19
But those comments made her think better of it. Those comments made her want to show these fools a thing or two. She started [Seeing Red] again, literally.
She hadn’t asked for this fight, after all. And what kind of lunatic will only bestow their favor if you fight them, anyway?
And to call her a coward, on top of it all?
No. No, that would never stand. The entire world blazed a crimson color, and Barbara let loose a roar of rage almost equal to Tyr’s own battle cry. She dove forward, fists flying, going blow for blow with the war god.
For about half a minute, she thought she was doing quite well. Certainly, he’d got some damned good hits in. She’d felt her teeth chatter, and her bones jar. But she’d done damage in her own right. She’d knocked him so hard in the head once that he’d staggered backwards two steps. And her other strikes had been nothing to scoff at.
Then the game notified her:
<<<>>>
Critical alert: your health has dropped below 10%. You are about to die.
<<<>>>
“Shit,” she said aloud, glancing at her health meter. Every inch of the thing had turned a dark red, and her head was blackish red.
Tyr laughed out loud with triumph. “And I thought you’d be a challenge. Guess you’re as weak as any of them.”
Barbara did the only thing open to her – she retreated as fast as she could. At the same time, she drew out a healing potion and swigged it in one mouthful. Her health shot back up to full. The meter turned a healthy, encouraging green.
The crowd jeered this move, but she didn’t mind this time. She was alive, anyway.
Still, she’d had exactly one healing potion in her possession on leaving Mike’s palace. And now she’d used it. Which meant that if she got herself into straits like that a second time, she was a goner.
Tyr’s rage had redoubled. He snarled as he moved in, saying, “Stop running, you coward. You’re man enough to kill a giant, probably in their sleep. But you run from me?”
A desperate idea flashed through her mind. Tyr was still angry about the whole giant heart situation. Maybe, if she admitted the truth, she could make him see reason. Mike had advised her, after all, to look for alternate means of completing her objectives. So maybe she wasn’t meant to defeat the god of war. Maybe she was meant to negotiate with him.
“Look,” she said, “this is a misunderstanding. I didn’t –”
She didn’t finish the sentence. His fist slammed into her mouth, and a moment later, she slammed into the pavement. Her vision danced in and out. The game told her:
<<<>>>
You have taken a hit to the head. You are suffering from a concussion. Until healing is applied, you will suffer random-level perception, agility, and critical thinking deficits.
<<<>>>
By the time she’d even processed the information, though, she was on her feet again. Not of her own volition this time. Tyr dragged her up by her hair with one hand. He held her upright, and with his free hand, beat her chest like one might a punching bag.
Her hit points plummeted. The little figure representing her overall health already showed a yellowish-orange hue for her head. Now, her torso started to morph, from green to yellow to orange.
“If your head or torso go black, you die. If your entire body goes red, you die.”
Mike’s words came crashing back to her ears. She squirmed and tried to free herself from the war god’s grasp. But he held on tight as ever and went on punching her. He was grinning and laughing like a madman, and the more she struggled, the louder he laughed.
Her health meter’s torso turned red.
She gave up trying to free herself and struck back. She landed a few hits at Tyr’s head. He barely seemed to notice. She kicked with all her strength. He didn’t flinch.
The health meter took on a blackish tint, and the game issued another dire critical warning. She was about to die. She knew that.
She could see the crowd jeering and celebrating her demise. Carwyn looked paler than ever – and nearer to bolting.
She saw a new face among the assembly. A familiar face – Loki, god of mischief. He was watching with curious eyes. Not amused, not sympathetic.
Just curious.
She recalled his words from their first meeting. “You amuse me,” he’d said. “You interest me.”
Then, he’d given her something – a little stone, carved with a strange symbol. “It is a rune of fortune. Use it to change your fortune as you see fit.”
She gave up hitting and kicking Tyr. She reached instead for her inventory and grabbed the rune. She felt its power as soon as she laid hands on it, and she felt rather than heard the question:
<<<>>>
Do you wish to use the rune of fortune to change your fate?
<<<>>>
“Yes,” she said, swinging a fist for Tyr’s face with all the combined force of renewed hope and bitter desperation.
The god of war seemed to sense something in her newfound determination. He took a half-step backward.
And his foot caught on the leg of the still sprawled man he’d fought earlier. He lost his balance and let go of Barbara’s hair. For a moment, he teetered. Barbara hit him again, and he toppled over.
He went down heavily, and Barbara, seized by some frenzy of certainty, leaped for him. She dove a knee into his groin and put one fist in his solar plexus and another in his nose. It crumpled under her fist, into an awful, twisted shape.
She went on hitting him. He raised his arms in a feeble defense, but she swatted them away. She grabbed him by his ears and slammed his head into the cobblestones.
Then, her own health well-below the twenty-five percent threshold she needed to utilize her [Not Just a Pretty Face] perk, she snapped her own skull forward, in a dizzying headbutt.
A headbutt that simultaneously sent Tyr’s hit points plummeting, and her own world spinning. The game informed her:
<<<>>>
You have taken another hit to the head. You are suffering from a severe concussion. Until healing is applied, you will suffer moderate to high-level perception, agility, and critical thinking deficits.
<<<>>>
They began immediately. She saw strange lights at the corners of her vision, and the roaring of the crowd sounded like it might have been a million miles away.
She barely noticed, though. Tyr slumped backwards, and she went on beating him until, slurring through a mouthful of blood, he called, “I yield. I yield.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The game informed her that she had completed her objectives and the quest – and gained Tyr’s favor. As a consequence, she had unlocked his patronage.
Tyr handled this with relatively good humor. He wiped his bloody face and drank down a healing potion. “Well, that’s a first,” he said. “A mortal beating me in combat.”
She feared this might have only soured his impression of her, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. He clapped her on the back and told her she’d make a proper son of the North yet. Then he offered her a healing potion.
“You look a little groggy, lad. Drink up.”
She did, gratefully, and the game informed her that her concussion penalties were lifted. She marveled as all the aches and pains of her encounter washed away – and tried not to consider what that fight would have done to the real Barbara Callaghan, whose old bones ached day to day for no better reason than existing.
“Now that we’ve sorted our differences,” Tyr said, gesturing to the tavern from which he’d burst awhile earlier, “come and drink with me.”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t.”
“Why not? You proved you can fight like a man. Now, prove that you can drink like one too.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I have things I need to do.”
Tyr started to argue, but Loki’s voice cut in. “Enough, good Tyr. Can you not see that our little mortal is scurrying about on some errand? Whose bidding are you doing, Barbara? Freyja’s, perhaps? Does she have you fetching the heart of a witch for her skin, or something like that?” He shook his head. “No. No, you look like you’re in too much of a hurry for that. It must be something for that fool Heimdall then. He always imagines his concerns are of the utmost urgency.”
Tyr seemed to tire of this speech, because he offered a disgusted grunt and turned back to the tavern. “Well, should you work up a thirst through your travels, you at least know where to find me.”
Loki waited until he’d gone before he spoke. In the meantime, he turned his attention to the last of the stragglers who remained. They visibly wilted under his gaze, slinking off in whatever direction they’d intended.
By the time Tyr closed the tavern door after himself, the entire street had been deserted, save for Barbara, Carwyn, and the god of mischief.
“Well,” he said, “so you defeated the god of war himself.”
“Yes,” she said. “Though I have you to thank for it.”
“Me? Not at all. Not that I’m not pleased to have played some role in flattening Tyr’s pugnacious nose, of course. But that was entirely your doing.”
“No,” she said. “I would have died. But I remembered that rune you’d given me.”
He smiled but persisted in disavowing any responsibility. “The giver of a gift is not responsible, for good or ill, for how the gift is used.”
“Either way, I’m grateful,” she said.
He said nothing to this, asking instead, “What are you doing, though? You looked very serious just now.”
“I have a quest,” she said.
Carwyn shook his head, with a gesture in Loki’s direction. “Don’t say anything to him,” he mouthed.
“Well?” Loki prompted.
“Well,” Barbara repeated, choosing her words carefully, “do you know anyone who might disguise themselves as a golden eagle?”
“Personally?” he asked. “No. But I know of several such people. Indeed, I believe at least one of them is currently in the city. One of the jötnar called Thiassi. He’s here to arrange a marriage between his daughter and one of these fools.”
She nodded, remembering that Heimdall had told her essentially the same thing. “And he can become an eagle?”
“Oh yes. He does it all the time. The ability to shapeshift is not uncommon to his people, you know. And he prefers the form of a great, golden bird.”
She glanced significantly at Carwyn. “Interesting.”
“Is it? I never thought so. Why settle for a bird when you could be a wolf, or a bear, or even a dragon?”
The game informed her that she’d completed her optional objective of speaking to Loki. Barbara tried to think of something polite to say to his irrelevant commentary.
Carwyn beat her to it, though he didn’t trouble too much about politeness. “Yes, well, fascinating as that is, we’d better be on our way.”
Loki agreed that they certainly should be. “The business of groveling to please my ridiculous peers is a busy one, I imagine.”
Barbara started to walk in the general direction she imagined the inn would be, based off of Heimdall’s directions. Carwyn followed, close at her heels.
And Loki stepped alongside of them.
Barbara stopped walking.
Loki stopped walking.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He glanced around, as if he imagined she might be talking to someone else. Then, he said, “Well, I’m going with you.”
“What? Why?”
“Why not? I have nothing better to do at the moment, and who knows – maybe you’ll have more questions for me. I know someone who shifts into a rabbit from time to time, just to lead the hunting dogs on a merry chase.”
“I don’t think that would be very helpful,” she said.
“No, but it is a lot of fun.”
She frowned. “You?”
He grinned. “You should see Thor when I do it. He’ll have his dogs out, chasing a giant of a bear, or one of the elk lords, and all of a sudden they’ll disappear on him, off on a wild goose chase.” He laughed heartily at the memory. “I don’t think he’s ever figured out that it’s me, the great blockhead.”
“That’s not very nice,” she said.
“No,” he admitted. “But it is fun.”
She spotted the inn up ahead. “Ah. There it is. Well, we should probably –”
But a voice cut her off – a high voice, full of appeal. It was a messenger boy, and he looked scared to pieces. “Lord Loki, Lord Loki, you must come at once. There’s been some kind of terrible accident.”
Loki frowned. “Really? What’s it got to do with me?”
“I don’t know, my lord, only that Odin says you are to come at once. Please, sir, do not make him wait. He’s in ever such a temper.”
Loki shrugged and turned to Barbara. “Apparently, I am summoned.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
“For once I haven’t the foggiest notion.”
Carwyn snorted like he didn’t believe a word of it.
“But for the All-Father to be in a rage this early in the afternoon, it must be something serious.”
“Smells like it’s got the stink of a trickster all over it,” Carwyn muttered.
“You flatter me, little troll. But I tell you truly, I don’t know what this is about.”
Barbara, however, felt that she might. She felt a pit forming in the center of her stomach as she recalled Heimdall’s and Idun’s theory that the missing apples would remain undiscovered until the next week.
“Maybe,” she said, “I should go with you.”
“You?” He turned a piercing glance on her. “Now, is that curiosity, or does the little mortal waif know something?”
“Of course not,” she said. “But maybe I can help.”
He burst into laughter at that. But his response was entirely at odds with the mockery in his laugh. “By all means, come. It will make the All-Father’s day, I do not doubt.”
It didn’t. They followed the messenger boy to a great hall near Odin’s own. Odin and Frigg and Thor were all out in the yard, and so too was a lady in a head-to-toe veil.
Odin’s face was red with anger, and it turned a deeper crimson at the sight of Loki. Seeing Barbara, it changed darker yet, until he was almost purple.
“You,” he said, though to whom, no one seemed to know. “You did this.”
“Me?” Barbara asked. “Did what?”
“Silence, idiot mortal. I am not speaking to you. Loki, this has the reek of your handiwork all over it.”
Loki stared at the king of the gods and seemed to Barbara genuinely perplexed by the accusation. “Forgive me, my lord. I have not the pleasure of understanding you. Of what am I accused?”
Thor turned angrily on Loki, his blue eyes red and bloodshot. “You – you know damned well what you did to Sif.”
Loki went on looking confused. “You know I should never like to contradict the son of Odin, but I am at a loss. Has something happened to Lady Sif?”
Now the woman in the veil turned around. She spoke with Sif’s voice, saying, “No one but you would have done something so cruel, Loki.”
The god of mischief shrugged. “I am flattered, but I am no nearer understanding. What specifically has befallen you, Sif?”
Odin’s jaw clenched, and Thor growled, “I’ll break every bone in your body for this, Loki. I’ll feed you to the wolves.”
Sif, meanwhile, moved. All at once the veil fell away from her shoulders; and there she stood, her face and figure as lovely as ever, but utterly bald. Her long, golden hair had disappeared.
Loki blinked in astonishment. “What the devil…?”
Carwyn snorted with amusement, murmuring something about a bad hair day.
Barbara asked, “If I may ask, Lady Sif, why do you suspect Loki?”
“Who else would do such a thing?” Thor demanded.
Tears welled in the lady’s eyes, and she drew the veil back into place until it shrouded her from head to toe again. “I used a hair cream,” she said. “My own had run out, and rather than wait until I’d gone to the chemist, I just borrowed a jar of Thor’s.”
Loki’s face went gray at this revelation.
She carried on. “It was a jar of beard softener that I had bought for him, many years ago.”
“Beard softener,” Thor snorted. “What an idea.”
“But it is not much different than my own shampoo. And since he had never used it, well, I thought it no matter.”
Loki groaned, a soft, pained expression. “You didn’t.”
Sif said, “And as I was washing it out, my hair fell away. All of it, all at once.”
“Now,” said Odin, “do you deny responsibility, you miserable trickster?”
Loki passed his tongue over his lips. “Well, certainly. If I meddled with Thor’s beard cream – if, mind you; I don’t say that I did – I would have never done anything to Sif. It would have been a prank on my friend, Thor. Not an attack against Lady Sif.”
“You meddling blackguard,” Thor said. “I will kill you for what you have done.”
“Come on,” Loki said, “you’re as much to blame as me. More. What kind of man doesn’t take care of his beard?”
Thor growled and took a menacing step toward him.
“And anyway, that was – what? A hundred years ago. Who leaves their toiletries lying about for a hundred years?”
“Your defense is that you would have assaulted my son, instead of my son’s wife?” Odin asked, an ugly edge in his tone.
“A prank,” Loki said. “It was nothing more than a prank.”
“Your prank has shamed me,” Sif said heatedly.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “I’m sorry for that. But you must see that I never intended –”
