Pyramid Power: Chapter Twenty Four

    On a limb of the great tree, an ash tree so large that its branches split the sky and its roots went down into the very bones of the earth, Jerry Lukacs was learning how you kept someone in suspense. The spear-wound in his side didn’t help either. Hanging by his hands on a rope over nothingness, Jerry wondered if it was going to be his nerve or his arms that gave way first.

    And now here was a squirrel climbing down his rope. It had unpleasantly big orange-yellow front teeth. A detached part of his mind said that there was something terribly undignified about having your throat torn out by a rabid squirrel.  Another part of his mind said that worrying about dignity when you were about die was just incredibly dumb. But it was so surreal that it cut through the panic. Maybe he was already dead. The events of the last twenty-four hours gave him a sort of detachment about it all.

    The squirrel seemed very amused by his predicament.

    “Let your feet down,” it said.

    Very cautiously Jerry did as he was told. If he was already hearing squirrels talk it was probably too late to clutch at the rope around his neck. His hands and forearms couldn’t have lasted much longer, anyway. They ached.

    Feeling something to stand on under his feet made him feel really, really stupid. And so incredibly light and relieved that he felt as if he could float cheerfully up into the cold blue sky.

    “I suggest you adopt the attitude of the corpses around you.”

    “Attitude?” Their attitude seemed to be… dead. Maybe the squirrel meant laid-back? Dead-pan?

    “Position. You are being watched,” explained the squirrel.

    Jerry hung his head. It was a lot better than having his body hung. Ever since he’d been marched out onto a branch which led out over the cliff-edge, and was wide enough for three to walk abreast, he’d known that he was going to die. There were too many other decaying remains hanging there for him to reach any other conclusion. Why they had dressed him in a wide hat and blue cloak was another matter. They’d put the rope around his neck, and then Odin himself had come forward and sliced the ropes that bound his hands. Jerry’s first instinct had been to grab the rope around his neck… which had been exactly what Odin had planned. A sharp jab with that spear, and Jerry had fallen into space, clinging frantically to the rope.

    A great laugh for the Æsir, no doubt. It had been a slight payback to see a large snake drop onto the branch and send them scurrying back to the cliff. It would have been more satisfying if the snake had eaten them.

    But what it had actually done was far more satisfying and more terrifying. Jerry finally had the courage to look down. He was standing on the snake’s broad back. It was stretched between the branches. He only curbed his normal reaction just in time, or he would have been hanging… by the neck.

    The squirrel on his chest chuckled nastily. “Góin likes you standing on her back as much as you like standing on it.”

    “Tell her I am intensely grateful, and I apologize profusely,” said Jerry. This was not the time to let ophidiophobia get the better of him.

    “Tell Loki. You’re going to have hold on again later, when the snakes change shifts.”

    “Shifts… How long do I have to stay here?”

    The squirrel switched its tail. “Nine days.”

    Jerry took a deep breath. “I might as well jump. I don’t think I’ll manage nine hours.”

    “Hmm,” said the squirrel. “And if I got you a little extra rope and you actually stood on the branch? We could probably get away with that. They can’t see that well. They must be oh, twenty-thirty leaps away. And there is a shred or two of fog blowing. Odin cheated a lot. I saw him.”

    “I… I think I could manage to stand for a while on the tree-branch. I’m not sure about nine days. That’s a long time without food or water, even if I could stand still long enough. I’m sorry to be so difficult.” Jerry felt foolish to be apologizing, and still incredibly glad to be alive.

    The squirrel shrugged. “Well, there is some joy in putting one over the Æsir. The problem is thus. There are two branches accessible from the cliff. Both are guarded, night and day. They put the ropes on the upper one, and bring the sacrifices along the lower one. I can run up the trunk, the snakes can wind their way up it, and the great stags can leap between branches. But even if they would carry you, the stags are loyal to Odin. So there is something of a problem in getting you away from here. And before you ask, a fair number of those sacrifice-hanging ropes are rotten. A couple of them broke under my weight.”

    Jerry hadn’t even thought that far. A drift of cloud was blowing cold and damp around them. “Can we try moving onto the branch, and talk about it from there?”

    “Surely. I think Góin would appreciate that,” said the squirrel.

    The huge snake—which made a python look like blindworm—arched its back, lifting him. “Put your legs either side of his body,” said the squirrel. “You humans have absolutely no sense of balance.”

    So Jerry knelt and then put his legs around the snake, and shimmied his way the few yards to the huge branch. He wouldn’t have said no to guard-rails, but compared to where he had been, the branch seemed as wide as a six-lane highway. And even if it meant certain death, he wasn’t going to endure that thing around his neck one instant longer. He slipped the noose free, and stood with in his hand.

    “Slip it down the front of your shirt and tie it around your waist,” said the squirrel. “That’s what Odin did. Not with the noose though. Even without a noose I think it will cut you in half after a while.”

    Jerry was willing to bet that it would do a person damage a lot faster than it would cut them in half, but it had to be more pleasant — and more secure — than a noose around his neck. With painful fingers he set about unknotting the noose that had nearly killed him. There was enough rope to do as the squirrel had suggested. And actually, once he had it snugged around his waist, tight, but not going to tighten any more, it did make him feel a lot more secure. Even if he did fall, the worst that could happen was a three yard swing—on a rope that he’d proved could hold him.

    There was a knot, he noticed now, just above his head. That was how come he’d managed to hold so long. Doubtless it was there for just that reason—to prolong the agony. and letting the victim cling to life for a few extra minutes. Jerry stood there absorbing the situation for a while as the cloud broke, letting him look onto a vista of distant branches and still more distant nothingness. He took a deep breath, relishing being able to do so. “Maybe,” he said to the squirrel on the branch in front of him, “You’d like to tell me who you are, and just what is going on. I owe you my life. And I gather that Loki is involved.”

    The squirrel snickered. “Loki is involved in most things, especially mischief, which is why I like him. I am Ratatosk, the drill-tooth, he who carries vicious words of hate between the eagle at the top of Yggdrasil and the serpent Nidhögg in Niflheim. It’s a job. And it stops them eating me, which is quite useful as both serpents and eagles like squirrel-meat.”

    He looked at Jerry and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. I bite. And I have friends.”

    “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Jerry felt the rope-abrasions on his neck. “But what exactly am I doing here?”

    “Looking stupid at the moment. By the way you’ve been dressed, I think you’re a stand-in for Odin. I reckon that he intends some quick change of roles, and to drop your body into the void of Ginnungagap. He will emerge as having been a sacrifice to himself, stabbed with his spear, and now with the wisdom of the dead and having lifted the hidden runes.”

    “Lifted?”

    “I think it is a kenning for stolen. Odin’s favorite pastime besides seducing maidens. I could like him if he was less self-important. Or if he hadn’t tried to catch and eat me.”

    “I’m making a mental note not to do that,” said Jerry. “But is there really no way out of here? I mean if I am still here after nine days, I think our one-eyed friend will just pitch me into the void anyway.”

    “Beat him at his own game. Odin’s a shape-shifter, if he wants to be. He’ll come along in disguise just after lunch, I’d guess, and wait for some cloud to come along to toss you over the edge. Then he’ll return heroically. But he’s expecting a body. You could toss him over the edge instead. That would be fun.”

    “And very unlikely. If I recall right he has a spear that doesn’t miss. I’ll have been here for nine days with out food or water and my only weapon will be sore feet.”

    “Gungnir the spear is a problem,” admitted Ratatosk. “Oh, well. Beat him to the punch. Come walking down at dawn on the ninth day. You might even get away, pretending to be him.”

    It was an attractive idea, even if it did mean spending nine days standing on a tree-branch, pretending to hang. “It’s not going to work,” said Jerry regretfully. “I’ll be too far gone with thirst, even if I manage the starvation side. I haven’t got a supply of food or water.” He patted his pockets… and felt half an apple. “Except this.”

    Ratatosk chittered his teeth. “That’ll help for the wound in your side anyway. And I can fetch you food and water. And even some extra clothes because it is cold here in branches with Fimbulwinter coming on. Count yourself lucky. The mist will let you sit down most of the time.”

    Jerry, knowing he had eight and half more days, ate a small sliver of apple. It had a invigorating and rejuvenating effect on him. Not perhaps as much as if he’d eaten the whole thing, but enough to ease the pain of the spear stab and make the prospect of a nine day vigil with nothing but a malicious-tongued squirrel for company seem survivable. “Hey. We have to try,” he said. “Maybe you can teach me these runes. I know a few.”

    “Maybe. And maybe I can be off about my business,” said Ratatosk. “Things to do, creatures to insult. The trouble is Nidhögg and the eagle are both lamebrains. I have to strain my intellect to add a bit of spice and malice to the messages, or they’d both have got bored years ago and eaten me. I’ll strip some corpses for warm gear for you.”

    It wasn’t quite what Jerry would have chosen as a wardrobe, but the present owners didn’t really have much use for them. And even with the hat and cloak and Skadi’s slightly too large boots it was going to be very cold on this branch. Cold and a long time in which to do nothing, without any reading matter. No wonder Odin had stolen runes and talked to the hanged corpses.

    It would give him some time to do some thinking, he supposed. Thinking of just what the hell Liz had been up to in Odin’s feasting-hall for starters. There was nothing formal between them… really. Had she perhaps slipped into the spell of this place and it’s role-play and beliefs? Jerry desperately wanted to believe that she had some reason for passionately kissing a Norse god with gold teeth and a big horn, besides the obvious probability.

    The other thing he could think about was how they could get home. That was possibly even harder to unravel, but it didn’t occupy as much of his mind—proving, against all probabilities, that academics can be human too.

    “Word for you on that lover of yours from Ratatosk via Nidhögg,” said Loki.

    Liz turned eagerly. Loki held up a calming hand. “He’s in one piece. But reaching him, now, would be nearly impossible. He’s going to try to escape at the end of the nine days. Nothing much we can do for him now. However, if your raven informant is right… when Odin ventures on Mirmir’s well, we’ll have him.”

    Loki made a face. “You do realize that this means that Odin is unlikely to trade your man for any treasure? We’ll have to seize him from them. It does leave us with a useful horn.”

    Liz sighed. “So where is this well?”

    “It is at the root of Yggdrasil that spreads itself deep into the lands of the frost giants. We can travel there at will, whereas the place where your Jerry is now is not one that we could reach. Odin will travel with some force, but we will be there before him.”

    “Just so long as Jerry doesn’t find himself as the meat in the sandwich.”

    “What is a sandwich?” asked Loki.