Thirty years ago, I was diagnosed
with testicular cancer, and four days later – Memorial Day – I was on the
operating table. I was thirty-one years old, married to my first wife for seven
years, and our first daughter was only four months old. I was terrified, of
course, but primarily because I didn’t want to leave my daughter without her father,
and I didn’t want to miss getting to see her grow up.
There were a few minor snags – at first the surgeon couldn’t find
one of my kidneys on my CT scan images (which is how I learned I have a pelvic
kidney on the left side), and the spinal block I’d gotten along with other
anesthesia somehow made it so if I tried to sit up, I felt instantly dizzy and
needed to vomit. I spent six hours lying prone in the recovery ward with a very
patient nurse who sat with me the entire time, until a doctor walked by, saw
me, frowned, walked over to my bed, skimmed my chart, then asked the nurse, “What’s
wrong with him?” She explained, and he told her to give me a drug whose name I
don’t remember. “He’s young, he’s strong, he can take it,” the doctor said.
Then he turned to me, said, “We’ll get you out of here,” then walked off. I
never learned his name, and I didn’t know what they were going to put into me,
but I didn’t care, so long as I got home. Whatever that medicine was, it worked
– until I was within three steps of my couch. Luckily, I managed to lie down
before I threw up everywhere. When I was discharged, I was told this weird
effect would wear off by morning, and it did. Otherwise, the surgery was a
success. And as a bonus, I felt absolutely no pain even though I had a finger-length
incision on my abdomen the entire time I was healing.
I had to have follow-up CT scans for five years, but in general,
testicular cancer has a high survival rate, and I was fine. I’d been writing
and publishing short stories for several years, and when I got the opportunity
to write a story for Marty Greenberg’s anthology Elf Magic, I decided I’d
use my experience with cancer as part of the tale. The result was “The Last
Warrior.” Elf Magic came out in 1997. My oldest daughter was two at the
time, and I loved every second I got to spend with her, even the hard times
when she was sick, or wouldn’t sleep through the night (I was always the one
who got up with her), and when I had to change a particularly messy diaper. And
I was privileged to experience it all over again when my second daughter was
born in 2000.
“The Last Warrior” has never been republished, and I decided to
celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of my surgery by sharing the story with all
of you. The sections that take place in our world are all drawn from my real
life. As for the other sections, who knows? Maybe I lived them, too, somewhere
and somewhen.
If you want to learn more about the signs and treatment of
testicular cancer, you can go here: https://tinyurl.com/4aunh8p7
THE LAST WARRIOR
TIM WAGGONER
Originally published in Elf Magic,
DAW Books, 1997
"Rise,
Alfarnin!"
The
voice—a woman's, he thought, an old woman's—seemed to come from a great
distance. Alfarnin tried to open his eyes, but he was tired, so very tired...
"There
is no time for this, elf! Get up! Skuld commands you!"
He
felt a pair of age-weakened hands tugging on his arm. He tried to pull away and
roll over so that he might shrug off the old woman and give himself up
completely to the darkness she was so determined to drag him away from. But he
found himself able to turn only partway. Something was blocking him.
He
opened a weary eye and found himself staring into the horrid, twisted face of a
troll. With a cry, he sat up, right hand instinctively groping for a weapon.
"Don't
bother, elf," said the old woman disdainfully. "It's dead.
Everything's dead here. Save you, that is."
Alfarnin
saw she spoke the truth. The troll's eyes were wide and staring, its hairy
chest a ragged ruin. He lifted his gaze from the fell beast to see he sat in
the middle of an endless expanse of corpses, all clad in battle gear. A vast
array of weapons protruded from the bodies—spears, pikes, swords, axes—and
blood covered the twisted, still forms like a crimson blanket.
He
looked down at his own simple tunic. Once it had been the plain gray of an
elven farmer; now it was a stiff, dark red edging toward brown. He touched his
long silver hair and found it clumped and matted with dried blood. He ran a
hand across his chest and stomach, searching for wounds, but those he
discovered were, for the most part, minor, though they hurt like blazes.
"Your
weapon, warrior." The old woman sneered this last word.
Alfarnin
turned to look at the woman for the first time. She wore a black robe, hood
drawn forth to cover her head, completely obscuring her features. If it hadn't
been for her quavering, cracking voice—and for her wrinkled, age-spotted claw
which held forth his hand scythe—he couldn't have guessed at her age.
He
took his scythe, noting that the dulled blade was caked with flaking
red-brown. "I was working in my fields when I heard Heimdall's
horn," he explained. "I had little time to prepare before
the battle was joined." The final battle: Ragnarok.
He
could remember little after Heimdall's signal had echoed throughout the
universe, summoning all creation to the last great war. To Alfarnin, it had
been a blur of images—flashing blades, thundering war horses, razor-sharp
claws—and a cacophony of sound—the battle cries of the gods, the answering
bellow of giants, steel clanging against steel. And above all, the screams of
the dying. So many screams.
But
it was over now. The warriors, both those who fought for Light and those for
Dark, were still, their voices silenced forever. And somehow, miraculously,
impossibly, Alfarnin, a simple tender of crops, was the lone survivor.
And
then he remembered what the old woman had named herself. "Skuld, you
said. You are one of the Norns, the three Fates."
"I
am. She whose province is the future."
Alfarnin
looked out across the endless open graveyard that surrounded them. There were
no buzzing flies, no feasting gore crows. The air was motionless, flat and
dead.
He
spoke in a weary, hollow voice. "After this day, I would think there
is no future."
Skuld
chuckled dryly. "That, my dear elf, is entirely up to you."
Gerald
Winnick, all of twenty-four years old, stood at the altar sweating and waiting
for the Wedding March to begin. His rented tux was too loose around the waist
and too tight around the throat. He was having trouble breathing, and what
little air he did get in lay hot and heavy in his lungs.
His
groomsmen stood beside him, three of his best friends from high school, but the
way he felt, he might as well have been alone. They weren't the ones getting
married today, they weren't the ones gambling their entire future on the next
half an hour or so.
It
wasn't that he didn't love Laura—he did—but the idea of being married to her,
being her Husband with a capital H, freaked him out more than a little.
Intellectually, he knew it was just a ceremony, a few words and an exchange of
rings, a confirmation of a love that already existed, no big deal.
But
emotionally, it felt as if something new was about to happen, something almost
magical. His whole world—and Laura's, too, of course—was about to change
forever.
The
priest smiled at Gerald kindly, then gave a nod for the organist to start
playing. As soon as the familiar strains of the Wedding March began (though
Gerald had never heard them outside of a movie or TV show before), Laura
appeared in the rear of the church, holding on to her father's arm. They stood
there a moment, then began slowly walking forward arm in arm. Laura was
beaming, and her father looked as if this were the proudest, and perhaps in a
way saddest, day of his life.
Gerald
started trembling. He loved Laura, but she was a bit self-centered, tended to
think of herself before anyone else, and while she expected him to share every
little feeling he had, she was reticent about sharing hers. And a dozen other
things, minor complaints, really, mostly tiny quirks and eccentricities which
everyone had, Lord knows he had his share, but when you took his weirdness and
hers and put them together...
Laura
and her father reached the foot of the altar. Her father kissed her on the
cheek, then she kissed him. Then they turned to face the priest.
"Who
gives this woman away?" the priest asked in a voice which filled the
church. It seemed to Gerald as if God himself were talking.
"Her
mother and I," Laura's father answered clearly. Then he gave Laura a
last kiss and sat in a pew next to her mother while Laura mounted the steps to
stand next to Gerald. Her maid of honor stepped down to arrange her train, then
took her place once more.
The
priest began talking but Gerald wasn't listening. He looked at Laura and she
smiled at him, a smile full of love and hope, with not a hint of nervousness.
Gerald felt her love for him, and while it didn't wash away his doubts
completely, it went a long way toward blunting them.
He
knew then that he had been waiting for something, for some sort of cosmic
guarantee that he was doing the right thing. But it was a guarantee that wasn't
forthcoming. He knew now that there were no sure things in life, and that a big
part of love, real love, was faith. The question was, did he have that kind of
faith in Laura? In himself? In them?
When
the time came, Gerald said "I do," and, even if his voice
quavered a bit, he was sure he meant it.
"Wake
up, elf!"
Alfarnin
opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them. The sky above was the same
dull gray it had been when he'd lain down. Skuld had said there was no time
anymore, so there would be no sunrise, no sunset, just endless gray.
Alfarnin
rose to his feet. Skuld stood a few feet away, hands on her hips, and while the
elf still couldn't see into the shadowed depths of her hood, he had the
impression she was looking at him disapprovingly.
"You
certainly sleep a good deal," the Norn grumbled.
Alfarnin
brushed dirt from his tunic. He had had to move several bodies in order to
clear a space to sleep. There was no way he could move a giant, even though
some of them were hardly larger than man-sized. Nor could he move one of the
Aesir, not just because he was loathe to dishonor one of the gods even in
death, but because despite their normal size, they tended to be made of sterner
stuff than men and were far heavier than they looked. The dwarves, while less
dense structurally, were still heavy enough, and, being a light elf, Alfarnin
couldn't bring himself to touch one of the hated dark elves. So in the end, he
had moved some of his own lithesome people and prayed for forgiveness to the
spirit of Frey, who among other things was—or rather, had been—god of elves.
"I
traveled quite a distance yesterday." Alfarnin realized such concepts
as yesterday and tomorrow had no meaning any longer, but he knew no other way
to express himself. "I was weary."
Skuld
snorted. "An illusion, nothing more. Your body felt tired because it
expected to. But without Time, you cannot tire." She gestured toward
the endless expanse of bodies that surrounded them. "Have you not
noticed that the corpses do not rot? That rigor has not claimed them? They are
as fresh as the moment life fled them. No time is passing here, elf, because
Time itself has died."
"If
Time has died, then why do I seem to experience it? Why must I still walk one
step after the other? Why do I still sleep and dream?"
"I
told you, it's an illusion!" Skuld said impatiently. "You
only think—" She broke off. "Did you say you dreamed?"
Alfarnin
nodded and told the Norn of his strange dream, of being a young human on the
day of joining to his mate.
Skuld
said nothing at first. Finally, she made a dismissive gesture. "We
exist in an in-between state here, between Life and Death, Existence and
Nothingness. Odd experiences are to be expected in such a place."
Alfarnin
shrugged. He was no mage or philosopher, just a simple farmer. Such weighty
matters were beyond him. Still, it had been an interesting dream. Alfarnin
himself had never been fortunate enough to be allowed to take a wife; the elf
lord who ruled the lands he farmed had never seen fit to grant his permission.
Alfarnin
put the dream out of his mind. He had work to do. "Are you going to
accompany me this day, Skuld? Or are you going to remain behind as you did
yesterday?"
"I
have no need to walk with you, elf. When you reach your destination, I shall be
there."
"Very
well." He started walking, picking his way carefully around the
bodies of the fallen warriors, stepping over them and, when he had no choice,
on them. He walked in no particular direction, for according to Skuld, he
didn't have to bother with that. He simply needed to concentrate on his goal
and continue forward.
It
didn't seem so simple to him. As Skuld had explained to him
"yesterday," he was to find the body of Allfather Odin, and tear the
heart from His chest. And then the elf was to bear the heart to Yggdrasill and
use it to renew creation itself.
Alfarnin,
as did all who lived, knew the prophecy of Ragnarok and what was to occur
afterward. The gods and their allies would perish while bravely standing
against the forces of Darkness. For a time, the world would be as ashes, cold
and barren, but then a spark of life would return and creation would begin
again, new and vital.
But
the tales had never said exactly how the world would be restored. But Skuld had
known. Being the Future, how could she not?
He
remembered how she had explained it to him.
"Think
of Existence as a wheel, elf," she had said not long after his first
awakening. "A wheel which is constantly in motion, turning slowly
from today to tomorrow, one day following the next in stately progression until
the end is reached and the wheel grinds to a halt. But the Wheel is circular;
it has no true beginning and end. All it needs to resume its turning is a push.
A push which you shall give, elf."
"Me?" he
had said, incredulous. "Such a task is for a god, or a great hero!
I'm not even a proper warrior!"
"True," Skuld
had agreed, a little too quickly for Alfarnin. "But you are all that
remains. I would do it myself if I could, but I cannot. The Future can make
itself known, but it cannot create itself."
Alfarnin
hadn't been sure he understood the difference, but Skuld said that was the best
explanation she could give, and he had no choice but to accept it.
"What
will the new world be like?" he asked.
"Much
the same as the old. The wheel has turned many, many times before this. There
have been other Ragnaroks; this was merely the latest."
"Have
I always been the only one to survive?" Alfarnin asked.
Skuld
laughed. "Don't flatter yourself, elf! The cycle of Existence has its
variations. There is always at least one survivor of the final battle,
sometimes more, and I always guide them so that they might restart the wheel on
its endless journey. This is the first time you have survived the battle. Last
time it was Loki." She shook her head. "Getting him to
start the wheel again took quite some doing."
Alfarnin
hadn't particularly wanted this duty, what Skuld called "a great
honor." After the horrors he had witnessed—and committed—during Ragnarok,
he would have rather lain down and surrender to the ultimate darkness, so he
might forget.
But
if he truly was the only one left, he had no choice, did he? Besides, Skuld had
assured him that when the wheel began its new cycle, he would eventually be
reborn, quite likely in a higher station because of his actions.
"Who
knows?" she had said, "you might even end up a lesser
god."
So
now here Alfarnin was, traipsing through the grisly aftermath of the final
battle, searching for the corpse of the Allfather, without any more guidance
other than Skuld's assurances that as long as he continued on, the elf would
eventually stumble across—
He
stopped. There, in the sky. Was that... Yes, it was. Off in the distance,
circling in the air, was a large black raven. It seemed Skuld had been right;
he had found what he was looking for.
Alfarnin
hurried forward.
Gerald,
all of thirty now, stood next to his wife, arm around her shoulders, and tried
to radiate calm and strength, despite the fact he was scared to death.
Laura
wore a blue housecoat and ugly green slippers, the latter provided by the
hospital. Her hair was limp and mussed, her face pale, eyes red from crying.
Gerald felt like crying himself, but he wouldn't allow it, not in front of
Laura. She needed him to be strong.
Make
that they needed him to be strong. Gerald turned away from
Laura and looked through the window at the tiny being who, along with his wife,
he’d made. Nurses bustled around the small (so small) infant, a girl, who
didn't have a name yet because she'd come so early. Eight weeks, to be precise.
The
nurses checked various tubes and monitors while Gerald's tiny daughter lay
motionless within the sterile warmth of her incubator. It was a poor substitute
for a mother's womb, but it would have to do.
Their
baby looked so frail, so weak, so tired, as if it exhausted her just to breathe
and pump blood through her not-quite-finished body. She needed a name, they had
to think of a name. But right now, Gerald couldn't do anything except hope to
God the tiny thing lived a few more hours.
Tears
began to flow down well-traveled paths on Laura's cheeks. Gerald tore his gaze
from his struggling daughter. "It'll be okay, honey," he
said. He forced a smile. "She's a fighter, just like her mom." He
didn't quite manage to sound as confident as he'd have liked, but Laura smiled
at him gratefully and wrapped her arms around his waist. And they stood like
that, together, and watched, waited, and prayed.
Alfarnin
stopped, disoriented and dizzy. He stood before the shaggy, blood-matted corpse
of a great wolf, many times larger than any ordinary lupine. This was Fenrir,
child of Loki, and, according to the prophecy of Ragnarok, the slayer of Odin.
And above, circling slowly, was the midnight-black raven.
Alfarnin
didn't recall anything from the moment he had first spotted the raven in the
sky, didn't remember crossing the intervening distance. No, that wasn't quite
true. He had had another of those strange dreams. Only this hadn't been a
dream, had it, for he had been awake. A vision of some kind, then. But a vision
of what, exactly, Alfarnin wasn't certain.
"Something
wrong, elf?"
Skuld
stood beside him, as she had promised. Alfarnin started to tell the Norn of his
vision, but then decided against it. It hardly seemed important, not compared
to the task which lay before him. He shook his head and examined the body of
the huge beast that had been the great wolf Fenrir.
From
the tales Alfarnin had heard all his long life, he had expected Fenrir to be
quite a terror, but despite the wolf's gigantic size, it made no more
impression on him than the thousands of other corpses he had seen in the
timeless interval since first awakening. Perhaps the horrors he had witnessed
during Ragnarok and after had numbed him. Or perhaps even the dire wolf Fenrir
didn't seem so fearsome when compared to the sick, helpless terror of a parent
desperately praying for the survival of his ailing child.
"Elf?" the
Norn prompted, a measure of concern in her voice.
Alfarnin
shook his head once more and did his best to cast the vision from his mind. He
was an elf, not a man of Midgard, and work lay before him.
Fenrir's
jaws had been torn apart by Odin's son Vidar, taking vengeance for his father's
death. Or so it must have been if the tales held true.
"It
strikes me as odd, Skuld."
"What
does, elf?"
"That
Odin and the other Aesir, knowing how Ragnarok was to turn out, did nothing to
try to change it."
Skuld's
tone was that of an impatient parent lecturing a slow-witted child. "It
was predestined; there was nothing they could do but play out their assigned
roles. The Wheel turns, and both gods and mortals follow, whether they like it
or not."
"They
hardly seem like gods, then, do they?" the elf mused. "More
like dancers stepping out their well-rehearsed movements to someone else's
tune."
"Such
is the way of existence," Skuld said.
Alfarnin
said nothing. Instead, he pointed his hand scythe at a black form which lay
partially buried beneath one of Fenrir's huge front paws. "Another
raven." He knelt down and prodded it with the blade of his scythe,
but it didn't respond. "Dead."
"Huginn," Skuld
said. "The raven of Thought. When Odin perished so did it likewise,
for the Allfather was done with thinking."
Alfarnin
gestured to the other raven still circling above. "And that
one?"
"Muninn,
the raven of Memory. Odin may be gone, but as long as we are here to remember
Him, Muninn lives on."
Alfarnin
nodded, though the Norn's explanation made little sense to him. "What
do I do now?"
"I
told you—you need to retrieve the Allfather's heart." She pointed to
the belly of the great wolf, and Alfarnin remembered: Fenrir was supposed to
devour Odin.
He
glanced at his scythe's dulled blade. It would hardly do the job. He began to
search the fallen warriors, looking for a dagger—a very sharp dagger.
Hours
later—or at least what seemed like hours later—Alfarnin stepped back from the
wolf's open gut and dragged a gore-smeared forearm across his sweaty brow. His
gray farmer's tunic was soaked with blood, which refused to dry: another
feature of the timelessness of this place, according to Skuld. Alfarnin wished
he had possessed the foresight to remove his clothing before beginning his
grisly work.
"You
are close, elf," Skuld said. "I can feel it!"
Alfarnin
took a deep breath, ignored the pain from his unhealing wounds, and stepped
back into the beast's carcass. After a bit, he reached what he thought was the
creature's stomach, and with a final downward swipe of the elf's borrowed
dagger, the leathery organ parted. A flood of foul-smelling liquid gushed
forth, splashing onto Alfarnin. His gorge rose instantly, and he turned away,
fully expecting to empty the contents of his own stomach, but though he retched
violently, nothing came up. He didn't have to ask Skuld; this was no doubt yet
another result of the strange nature of this place.
When
the urge to vomit subsided, Alfarnin turned back to the cavity he had created
in Fenrir and there, mangled and curled into a ball, reposed the body of Odin,
Allfather, Lord of the Aesir and all creation.
Alfarnin
had never seen Odin before, though he had heard many, many tales of the god
over the centuries. And truth to tell, he was rather disappointed. He had
expected to find an imposing, kingly being. But instead, Odin was a tall, lean
old man with a long scraggly gray beard and a black leather patch over one eye,
or rather, where an eye had once been. His golden battle armor seemed too large
for the scrawny body, as if its owner were a beggar who had suddenly been
pressed into service instead of being the all-powerful god of gods.
It
was difficult for Alfarnin to understand why such a mighty being, forewarned of
such an ignominious end, would not choose to take steps to avoid it. Unless, as
Skuld had said, He had had no choice. Well, Odin had played out His part; so,
too, would Alfarnin.
"Forgive
me, Allfather," he whispered, then raised his dagger and returned to
his work. A bit later, he held in his hand a blood-smeared orb of polished
silver. The Heart of Odin.
Skuld
clapped her withered hands in glee. "One more journey, elf, and you
are through. You must take the heart to the base of Yggdrasill. As before, keep
your destination strongly in your mind as you walk, and you shall eventually
reach the World Tree. I shall await you there."
And
then she was gone.
Alfarnin
wiped the heart off on the cloak of one of the low-ranking Aesir lying not far
from Fenrir, tucked his dagger in his belt, and then, even though he really did
not need it any longer, he picked up his scythe. He had started his journey as
a farmer, and it seemed only right that he finish it as such.
He
began to walk, but stopped when he heard a soft thump behind him. He turned to
see Odin's second raven, Muninn, lying dead on the ground. Now that the
Allfather had surrendered His heart, what need was there to remember Him
anymore? Alfarnin looked across the field of corpses. What need to remember any
of this?
Reeking
of blood and gastric juices, he resumed his journey.
Gerald
was thirty-nine, too young to have to worry about words like tumor and chemotherapy.
But his cancer hadn't bothered to ask for his I.D. before inviting itself into
his body and settling in. Now, after three surgeries (one major, two minor) he
sat in a waiting room of the outpatient care wing of Holland Memorial Hospital,
wracked with nausea from his latest chemo treatment, trying to choke down a
horrid concoction of powdered lemon drink mix and contrast dye that would make
his innards more photogenic for the CT scan.
His
oncologist said his chances for a cure were good; not great, but good. So
Gerald endured the surgeries, the CT scans, the blood tests, the x-rays, the
chemo, and worst of all, the soul-gnawing fear that in the end, none of it
would be enough. Because he desperately wanted to live.
Not
so much for himself. Given the choice, he wanted to squeeze as many years out
of his life as he possibly could, but he'd lived to thirty-nine, and overall,
he was satisfied with the time he'd had. And while he wanted to live for Laura,
he knew he didn't need to. Their marriage hadn't exactly been storybook
perfect, but it had, on balance, been a good one. But Laura was still young, at
least relatively so, and she was a strong woman. If she had to, she'd get by
without him, maybe even find someone and remarry. Knowing this comforted him.
No,
he wanted to live primarily for Caitlin. She'd be ten next month, and even
though she was getting to be quite a big girl, he couldn't bear the thought of
leaving his daughter without a daddy.
And
so he sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chair, his gut churning angrily,
and concentrated on holding the contrast down.
When
this latest vision released Alfarnin, he found himself standing at the base of
what appeared to be a craggy gray mountain. He looked up to see, beyond the
clouds, a vast canopy of green covering the sky. No, which was the
sky. He had reached Yggdrasill, and as with Fenrir, he had no memory of
traveling here. Perhaps Skuld had been right and there really was no Time in
this place.
"Of
course I was right."
The
Norn stood before him, features still hidden within her hood. Her feet touched
the edge of one of the World Tree's three gigantic roots.
"I
remember the tales," Alfarnin said. "This is the root
beneath which the Well of Fate rests."
Skuld
nodded. "And where the gods themselves came to hold council each day.
As guardian of the Well, I often listened in as they talked." She
chuckled. "Or more often, argued."
Alfarnin
frowned. "What of your sisters, Urd and Verdandi? Past and
Present?"
"We
are One." Skuld opened her robe to reveal not the body of a wrinkled
old crone as her voice promised, but rather an empty black space in the middle
of which hung the motionless shape of an ancient, crude spinning wheel. At the
center of the wheel was a circular depression, just the right size, Alfarnin
thought, for the heart of Odin.
"Past,
present, future..." Skuld snorted. "Merely names. They are
one and the same. See the Wheel. Does it have a beginning or end? No, it is a
circle, unbroken. We are One, and that one is the Wheel."
"It
isn't moving."
"The
Wheel has completed its cycle. It's up to the last survivor of Ragnarok—to
you—to give it a push and start it turning again."
Alfarnin
didn't have to ask what was expected of him. All he had to do to renew creation
was to place the holy heart in the center of the Wheel, and all would begin
again. It was his duty, to his gods, to his fallen elven brothers and sisters,
to all who had fought and died in service to the Light. But he hesitated.
"The
visions I experienced, Norn—what did they signify?"
"They
are nothing, elf," Skuld snapped. "Now fulfill your purpose
this cycle and give me the heart!"
"Why
here? Why did you not ask for the heart when I first removed it from
Odin?"
"Because
only here, at the base of Yggdrasill, am I truly one with the Wheel. But forget
all that; the time for explanations is past. Give me the heart!"
"Why
don't you take it from me?"
"I
told you, the future cannot make itself! You must make it, here and now!"
"Tell
me about the visions, Norn." Alfarnin smiled. "After all,
if there is no Time any longer, then we have no need to hurry, do we?"
Skuld
was silent for a while before finally sighing. "Very well. I told you
that there is always at least one survivor of Ragnarok, and that it is this
survivor's task to renew creation. During the journey to salvage Odin's heart
and bring it to the World Tree, the survivor has three visions of what his life
in the next cycle will be like, so that he understands why he must restart the
Wheel and what his reward will be."
"My
visions were of mortal life as a man of Midgard," Alfarnin
said. "But a Midgard unlike any I have ever heard tell of."
"Being
the Future, I am quite aware of the visions you experienced." She
paused. "However, I fear that I cannot explain them."
"Perhaps
the next cycle will be different from the last," Alfarnin suggested.
"Impossible.
The Wheel is the Wheel. There may be minute variations in its turning, but the
path remains ever the same. It begins with creation, then comes the rise and
flourishing of the gods, and then Ragnarok, turning after turning, cycle after
cycle, without end."
Alfarnin
thought for a moment. "What if I do not give you the heart? What of
the Wheel then?"
"You
have no choice; you must give me the heart. It is the role appointed you by
destiny."
"I
think you are lying, Norn. You told me before that once the Wheel stopped, Time
ceased to be. Before Ragnarok, I was just another of Fate's puppets. But I
think many things have ceased to be now, Fate among them. For the first moment
in my existence, I am truly free to choose."
Skuld
said nothing.
"I
repeat my question," Alfarnin said. "What happens to the
Wheel if I do not give you the heart?"
"Without
the heart—which is the heart of Creation itself—the Wheel cannot continue to
exist. It shall cease to be, as will Existence itself."
"All
existence?" Alfarnin challenged. "Or just this one?"
Skuld
didn't respond.
"Your
Wheel is a prison, Skuld. Perhaps it's time for creation to be free." Alfarnin
held the heart of Odin in his left hand and raised his scythe above it with his
right.
"Hold,
elf! You don't know what you're saying! Without the Wheel to give shape and
form to existence, all will be Chaos! Events will unfold randomly, and no one
shall ever know what might occur next, for anything might happen, anything at
all!"
"Considering
the senseless carnage of Ragnarok—of Ragnaroks untold—I think not knowing what
tomorrow will bring might be better." Alfarnin raised the scythe
higher.
"Think
hard before you act, elf," Skuld warned. "This other,
lesser Midgard you would create would be naught but a bastardized world where
uncertainty and ambiguity rule in place of the gods. There would be no fixed
roles, no set future, no clear division between Good and Evil. In that world,
you would be but a mortal man, weak, frail, doomed to fret over petty anxieties
and frustrations all of your short life. Here, in Asgard, you were—and could be
again—an elven warrior, fighting on the side of Light in the most glorious
battle creation has ever known!"
"Glorious?" Alfarnin
thought of the slaughter he had witnessed, and its aftermath. "Meaningless
is more like it." He tightened his grip on the scythe. "And
the man Gerald will be far more of a warrior in his quiet, unsure way than the
elf Alfarnin ever was."
He
brought the scythe down and plunged its blade into the silver heart of Odin.
Skuld screamed, the Wheel cracked apart like thunder, and the world was no
more.
"We're
ready for you now, Mr. Winnick," the CT technician, a heavy-set
blonde woman, said gently.
Gerald
nodded, set down his empty cup, and stood too quickly. His vision went gray and
he swayed dizzily. He thought for a moment he might fall, but then the
technician came forward to take his elbow. His vision cleared, the dizziness
passed, and he smiled gratefully at the woman, only a little embarrassed.
With
the technician's help, Gerald made his way out of the waiting room and walked
slowly down the hall toward the CT room, one unsteady step after another.
