Chapter three
Loki sat behind his desk and stared at Odin with wide eyes and an open mouth. Odin stood silently, watching his brother with a careful eye. Loki was shorter and slighter compared to Odin, who appeared more muscular, although beneath his clothes he was actually round. Both men were over six feet tall, and when they were young they would frequently be mistaken for twins. Loki’s hair was still thick and black, although he openly admitted to using a men’s hair dye kit to keep it that colour. Odin’s hair was grey with peppered spots of black. Their jaw lines were the same, their eye shape was the same and their ears were the same. They shared many of the same abilities, physically and characteristically. Both men were tanned from their childhoods in the south of Italy, and both shared the family eyes- not quite grey, but not quite hazel. Loki’s eyes changed colour from time to time. They were the family colour most of the time, but the rest of the time they were amber. Odin’s eyes never changed. Loki’s accent had changed over the years, gradually disappearing along with his personality, which had become darker. Odin believed this to be the result in remaining in London and never travelling. Their father had run the Organisation from Tuscany and, later, Syracuse. Even with the strain and demands of the role, their father had managed to travel all across the globe, mastering the languages and memorising the lore and telling it as his own. No man was wiser in the ways of others than Vittorio Mafuro.
Loki’s bushy eyebrows twitched.
“And these are the dreams?” Loki sounded as though he couldn’t quite believe what Odin had just shown him. Using the same technique as he had with Matt- or Mattia, as Odin liked to call him- Odin had shown Loki seemingly every nightmare the boy had ever had.
“Of course they are.” Odin said. “You cannot deny it in any way- these are the exact nightmares he has had, as he shared them with me.”
Odin sighed. His brother, ever the sceptic, was refusing to contemplate the possibility that his own suspicions were coming true.
These were the dreams, Loki, Odin thought to his brother. You were not mistaken- this is the indication of greatness! Just imagine what the Council will make of this!
But, a child? Loki challenged.
A child of an equally great man, brother. Odin smiled with this thought. Riccardo was also seventeen when he showed the arc of a great warrior.
His was an exceptional case! Loki flared. More to the point, if Matthew is truly destined for greatness as I thought and you believe, then he must perform an act which will manifest one or more of the Virtues!
And if he can’t, or won’t? Odin asked, trying to make his telepathic voice sound smooth and questioning.
Whether he cannot or will not is not the case, Loki explained, for the act will manifest itself given time. Now that we have discovered his evaluative dream, it is a matter of time. Give him three seasons, and we shall know for definite.
Yule is fast approaching, Odin suggested. It begins in five days. As well as being the festival where we initiate our new members, it is also the time for hospitality. Shall we assume that he is the One for hospitality?
He does wish for a hospitable career, Loki mused. Yule is his first deadline. Remember- we have set him three seasons.
So, in three seasons, Odin clarified, we will know if he truly is one of the fabled warriors?
In three seasons, we will know for definite that he is the earthly manifestation of one or more of the Virtues. Loki thought.
So there are nine angels! Odin thought triumphantly. I knew it!
No! Loki thought, his telepathic voice sounding loud. You were not right! Not yet, anyway. It is possible that there are nine, but we must be patient. Our aim is to decipher the Ancient Fable, and the twelve who will be helping us are the key to the angels as well as the code! Remember- we cannot be sure of anything just yet. I may be wrong, and there may indeed be one per Virtue, but we must play this right if we are to have any chance to renew the pastures.
Of course, brother, Odin thought sadly, and say what you wish! I know about the stars! Please, for the respect of the Aesir, make me a Guardian! Let me lead them- I know what is happening!
Not this again! Loki thought bitterly. You may think you know, but you are not entirely sure. You can say that Jormungandr is awakening from the sleep, you can say that it is the Midgard serpent all you want, but the Guardians will prove you wrong in the end!
Fine, young one! Odin flared, leaving Loki feeling slightly scorched. But you should remember why you were chosen in the first place!
This caught Loki. In the pit of his gut, Loki felt something stir that had not been stirred in years. It was a queer cocktail of anger, respect and humiliation. Which of the three was the strongest agent of the poison he felt, Loki could not decide. He hit himself on his chest and looked up at his brother.
“Perhaps I should,” Loki said coldly. “My promise that I would find the source of the legends, that I would keep as my top priority the safety of the Organisation? That I would find out our true name? My promise that I can keep this HQ safer than any of the other Maestros before I? These were my promises, my oaths, not to mention my charisma and the impeccable source which had recommended me.” Loki chuckled dryly. “Of course, Odin, as you may recall I pushed as hard as I could for the chance to work alongside you! The older brother to whom I looked up and aspired to be like from an early age. Working with you as my fellow Maestro, I pushed them; I believed, tried to make them believe, tried to make them see it from my side: we could have cracked the code of the Ancient Fable in shorter time than it has taken me. We shall never know, with thanks to the Council!”
“Oh, Loki,” Odin tutted. “Is that still what you believe?”
“Of course!” Loki spat. “You were always Father’s favourite,” Loki’s eyes began to glow, and Odin knew that this would not end happily. Loki jumped up and stormed around his desk, coming face-to-face with Odin in a matter of milliseconds. “He read to you from the Eddas. He trained you more for battle and me for theory. Have you any idea how I longed for battle?” Loki’s voice was fast becoming a growl. “I wished for Father to show me the love he lavished upon you and Chrysalis.”
“But he took you everywhere he went,” Odin said, carefully thinking about his choice of words. “I wanted to go with him on his many travels. I wanted to go to Helsinki, Stockholm and Reykjavik. Instead, he took you. You understand more than I how much Papa enjoyed his travels. He always said he wanted the best.”
“But the best of what?” Loki flared, his eyes glowing a dangerous red. “The best of a son he couldn’t love? The best of a soon-to-be theorist?”
Odin stood firm and held his chin high. “Papa had a plan, fratello.” Odin dipped his head to the right, adding; “He planned for me to be the warrior, and you to be the thinker. He could not have loved me more, for the warrior dies while the thinker lives.”
Loki’s eyes flashed orange, returned to a steady red. Their normal hazel-grey had been lost amidst the twin seas of blood. Odin kept his breathing steady.
Loki shook his head violently and glared at his brother. “‘The warrior dies while the thinker lives’? Pah! The only thinkers whom have survived are barely alive now! Thomas Aquinas wrote the Just War Clause. Does he still live? Physically? Is he here with us now, participating in this conversation? No. He has not lived.”
“But his ideas live on,” Odin pointed out. “And it is the fact that we know them that keeps him alive. Papa must have believed you would be a great hero, Loki.”
“Then why am I named for a trickster?”
“Because, despite Loki’s evil intents,” Odin reasoned. Growing up a warrior, logic had been his most prized tool. It never failed him in training, and his conscription had proven that it was not about to fail him come a real war. He only hoped that logic would not fail him with his brother. Odin counted the number of Loki’s mood swings that had ended well contrary to those that had not ended so well and assessed the possibility that this would be a happier ending, but he still agreed with his gut: this would not end well. All he could hope for, was that Loki took the next argument well; “Despite Loki’s evil intents, he was cunning, clever and resourceful. He raised you on books, me on swordplay. He read to you from fairytales, to me from the Eddas. He prepared you to be my guardian, brother. Papa was an intelligent man. You travelled with him so that Mama and Zio Constantine could test me. Chrysalis was not trained at all. Mama wanted her to be an onlooker, wanted to spare her from the trauma of what Papa thought to be our destiny. Loki, understand what I say when I tell you that we are two halves of the same whole, flying together toward a destiny we have trained for from the very beginning. You, the guardian. I, the warrior.”
***
Ron lay in his bed, thinking. He could hear Matt breathing steadily across the room, and a thought struck him. He found it suspicious that Matt was sleeping so well. Ron was pleased for his brother, but there was something wrong with this whole picture. Ron’s chair, for example. Ron had been too tired to move it, but it was still there. Sitting in front of Matt, as though somebody had been here. Ron and Kevin had passed a tall, tanned man with salt-and-pepper hair who looked like a personal trainer, and although Ron hadn’t thought about it before, he wondered if the man had been here before. Ron got to thinking. While he was sitting with Richard, they were watching a news programme on television. They had something more to go on for the bombing: it wasn’t a terrorist group, but it was a bomber squad nonetheless. A squad so apparently advanced, that they had managed to create a new kind of bomb that could- allegedly- be powered by thought. Ron wasn’t buying it. At all. He had learned enough in his fifteen short years to know that thought-powered war machinery was destined for after his generation had died out. The broadcast continued to talk about the effect of the bombing- five dead, sixteen either critically or slightly wounded, and nine survivors out of those who had been in the building. The building hadn’t been completely occupied- suspicious technology had been detected and all but thirty had managed to escape the building before the bomb went off. The police were interviewing the survivors, were looking for anyone who had seen anything suspicious and began a search for suspects.
Ron was suspicious and wanted to know more. When he made his points to Richard, he had been told to go to bed. Kevin was probably reading and Matt had been out for a few hours already after ‘a hard day at college’. Ron did start to feel tired and went to bed, but his mind wouldn’t let him sleep. He kept looking over at Matt, worry gnawing at his gut. Something had happened here, and Richard wasn’t letting on. Matt was sleeping peacefully, unperturbed by nightmares for a change, and Ron had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with where that chair was placed.
The room had been cold when he entered, and he noticed that somebody had opened the window. He didn’t care at the time, but now the cold was starting to bite, even beneath the thick duvet he slept with. Groaning, he got out of bed and went to matt’s side of the room. He closed the widow and crashed back into his bed, curling up beneath the thick duvet with the purple cover. Closing his eyes, he willed sleep to come, but it just wouldn’t come to him. He blamed his brain for over-thinking, but he knew it was something else. He had been hearing it for the past hour, since he came in to bed. He dismissed it, but it was there, hanging in the air. He shrugged it off as Richard watching a movie in the living room, but for an hour? The sound of hooves hitting cobbles, asphalt and concrete. It had been there for an hour. No movie went on for so long that all you could hear was hooves in cobbles, asphalt and concrete. Ron did his best to ignore it and tried to will sleep. Eventually, the sound stopped... but he did hear the front door open. He figured it to be Richard going for a late-night walk. But then the door to his and Matt’s bedroom opened. The wood made no noise, but it was the light that distracted Ron. He lifted his head from the pillow and tried to look like he was turning in his sleep, but he had a feeling he was failing. Still, he tried and opened his right eye a crack. He had to close it again, but no matter what he couldn’t black out the light. The strong, golden light that radiated from the door, a light he could feel getting closer. He heard footsteps. But how could he have heard them now when he couldn’t before his door opened? Or, for a matter of fact, how did he hear them just as they stopped by his bed? He felt the light right there next to him, and he saw no point in pretending to be asleep because there was no way it would pay off with his mystery visitor. When he opened his eyes, the light seemed to get dimmer, and when he closed his eyes to blink, the light seemed brighter. He decided to try to keep his eyes open. Ron sat up in his bed and propped himself against the pillows. He felt the sense of worry grow in his gut as he eyed his visitor, and prayed that he was asleep and dreaming.
His visitor was tall, slim and blue-eyed. His long blond hair was loose about his shoulders and he wore Viking armour, but not battle armour. The visitor wore a chain-mail corselet, leggings and leather boots, the kind you ride a horse in if you’re a Viking. Under his arm, the man held a helmet and in the scabbard at his waist the hilt of something either wooden or metal stuck out. Ron noticed the belt which the scabbard was attached to, and saw a messenger bag. Just looking at him reminded Ron of some of the stories Marissa used to read him...
“Ronald Amsterdam?” he asked. He had a smooth voice with a Scandinavian accent.
Ron was taken aback. He jumped back in his bed and gasped. The man was speaking an entirely different language, and Ron had understood him perfectly.
“Are you Ronald Amsterdam?” the man asked. “You’ve nothing to fear, sir. I am a humble messenger.”
Ron was scared, now. How did he know his name?
“Are you Ronald Amsterdam?” the man asked again. He didn’t appear to be annoyed, but Ron could tell that he should say something.
“Um...” was all that he could say at that moment.
The man smiled. “You’ve nothing to fear, sir. I am a humble messenger, and i have strict orders to pass onto you an important message from Asgard.”
Is this for real? Ron asked himself.
“I’m Ronald Amsterdam,” he said finally. “But call me Ron.”
The man smiled more. “Hello, Ron. I am Hermod, messenger of the Aesir. It is my honour to pass on the following message from my father.” Hermod knelt down by the bed. “I apologise for the reception, for, you see, I was among the few to return from the battle. I was killed in the midst of war, but I came back! Nothing can kill the messenger!” he chuckled slightly. “My father died on the battlefield, and before his death, he cast a spell on the universe. Before I died, I listened, and made it my duty to pass it along. And here I am. Brace yourself- this will take a moment.” He rooted in the messenger bag and pulled out an envelope, which he slid under Ron’s pillow. Hermod caught Ron’s wary eye and smiled reassuringly. “Do not worry- it is just the transcript. The full transcript, mind you. I am authorised to speak part of the message. Only you and three others are able to read it, but the other three will have their own copies!” Hermod then closed his messenger bag and took the thing out of the scabbard. From what Ron could tell, it was the source of the light, but he didn’t have to shield his eyes. It was a rod, about a metre and a half long. Hermod held it at either and it glowed purple. Hermod spoke:
“Message for Ronald Cornelius Amsterdam, son of Richard Norman Amsterdam, grandchild of Anora Fiorina Armitage.” Ron shuddered as a strange, cold sensation gripped his body. He braced himself as Hermod continued the message;
“The great giants fell, the battle was won,
The war is not over, for we have only begun.
It is an eternal journey, a significant quest,
The warriors earn more when they expect less.
You will succeed where I have failed,
There is nothing more on a grander scale.
The war is ongoing, but you will fight,
Because, lying in you, is the evergreen light.”
Ron was confused, and it obviously showed on his face because Hermod said, “Not to worry. We shall meet again,” and sheathed the stick. He turned and left the bedroom. Taking the light with him and closing the door.
It was still dark outside, but you could tell it was morning. Ron was unsure if he had slept last night, although he felt rested. He looked over at Matt, and saw his brother stir awake.
“Hello there,” his brother asked strangely, as though he were unsure if Ron was real. A moment’s silence. “How’d you sleep?”
“I’m not sure,” Ron said, more to himself than Matt. “Weird dream.”
He turned on his stomach and slid his hands under the pillow. A thought occurred to him, so he ran his hands around the area underneath the pillow. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he found something. It felt like paper. He pulled it out and saw, in his right hand, an envelope.
“What’s that?” Matt asked.
“I have no idea.” Ron said quietly. He pulled his left hand out of the pillow and turned the envelope around in his hands. It was a light purple and had his name in the front in thick, black letters.
“You don’t think it’s the Tooth Fairy, do you?” Matt asked. It was obvious he was joking, but something in his voice made Ron feel defensive. Had that dream been a dream? Or had it been real? He could still see the light. Strong and gold, almost like a halo.
“What was your dream?” Matt asked.
“I don’t want to say.” Ron’s voice was quiet. He was nervous now.
“Come on, bro,” Matt had a smile in his voice. Ron looked at his brother and they both knew something was wrong, though neither wanted to admit it. Matt looked well-rested and was smiling.
“It was just weird.” Ron said.
“‘Weird’ how?”
“Nothing,” Ron shook his head. “Just let me figure it out for myself first, okay? I want it to make sense to me before it makes sense to someone else.” He realised how selfish that sounded, especially since he was talking to Matt. Matt, who had had so many nightmares Ron had awoken in the middle of the night to hear his brother cry out for mercy, wisdom or something equally queer.
Matt shrugged. “Okay.” He climbed out of bed, bent over and grabbed his towel off the floor. He stood up and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Ron asked, suddenly afraid. He didn’t want to be alone, like a little kid sitting alone in a room waiting for an adult to tell him what was going on.
“Bathroom,” Matt said. He yawned and stretched, the towel flopping over his head like a raven’s wing. “Be back in thirty.” Matt left the room and Ron felt a sudden wave of panic. He rolled out of bed and ran for the light-switch the moment his feet hit the floor. He closed his eyes tight as he switched on the light, and only opened them when he was sure he was alone. He had a sudden fear that opening his eyes would reveal some kind of monster. But he didn’t see any monsters. He didn’t even see Hermod. It was like a strange dream. The only evidence for it was the light purple envelope that Ron had dropped when he rolled out of bed. It was on the floor, almost staring at him. The side with his name on it faced upwards, as though challenging him. He was scared to leave the light-switch. He felt like it was the only thing protecting him, and he wondered if leaving it would cause his doom. A wind began to run through the room, only covering an inch or so above the floor. The wind picked up the envelope and it fluttered towards Ron, as though it had grown wings. It sailed through the air like a leaf on an autumn breeze and landed at Ron’s feet. The wind disappeared and Ron was left standing at the light-switch in a blue long-sleeve t-shirt and grey tracksuit pants with bare feet. A minute went by before Ron considered picking up the envelope, and when he did it fell open in his hands. It was a rough-cut A4 sheet with heavy, ancient handwriting. The first part of the message was the part Hermod had read aloud to him last night. The second part, which completed the message, didn’t bear thinking about. As Ron read it, he began to wonder if he had been dreaming and Matt, seeing an opportunity to get revenge on Ron for the mockery of his own nightmares, copied down the lines he ‘heard’ and made up a second part to toy with him. There was just one problem: the writing itself. It was written in such a thick set that it required a special ink and a careful, artistic hand to write it with, and if Ron knew anything about his brother, it was that art was not his strength. The script itself was ancient, and equally supernatural. Holding the paper in his hands, Ron felt as though he were holding something that didn’t belong on Earth.
What had Hermod told him?
Only you and three others are able to read it.
He needed to talk to Richard.
