The Hammer of Thor Read online

  CHAPTER THREE

  Phoenix curled under the furs, staring at the rough timber wall. He heard the low murmur of voices as Jade and the others talked about where to go next but none of it had really registered. One thought possessed his mind: I’m alive.

  He’d been dead. Dead; gone; finito; over; finished; kaput. He knew it: every cell in his body somehow knew it. It had only been for a few minutes but he didn’t think he’d ever forget it.

  There had been no “near death” experience; no white light to stay away from; no seeing his body from outside; just....nothing – and that scared him more than anything. Was it only nothing because this was a digital world, so his death hadn’t been real? That old woman in the gray limbo land had said this world was as real as their own. Dying had certainly felt real.

  Without really wanting to, he relived it.

  In some ways, death had come as a relief. The blinding agony of those two Roman arrows in his back was unbelievable. Drawing a breath became impossible. He felt his body shutting down and almost welcomed it. Pain vanished; fear slipped away along with his consciousness.

  Coming back to life was the shock. At the time, Phoenix only registered that he was numbingly cold and wet. He slipped in an out of awareness as the others carried him towards the hut. He barely remembered the wolf attack – just the cold, weakness, pain.

  Now inside the hut, he was content to lie in the furs in order to just think for awhile. Sleep wasn’t yet an option. It seemed too much like the nothingness of death.

  Instead, he revelled in the sensations that told him he lived: the sound of his own breath; his heart; the rush of blood surging through his veins; even felt the fuzz on his unbrushed teeth. It was hard to believe that this was only a digital body, not a real one. The complexity of a software program which could make everything so very real was unimaginable. He felt real. Death had felt real. Too real. Coming back to life was impossible but then, so was being magically transported into an adult body in a different world. Maybe the old lady who’d told them this world was real was right. Maybe it was.

  He was so used to this warrior’s form now that it was hard to remember living in his gawky thirteen year old body at all. After being killed once, he now had a very strong desire to keep this body healthy.

  Most of all, the overwhelming idea that he had actually died, kept hijacking his brain; derailing every attempt at focusing on the future. All he could think about was the past.

  For three years he had been angry at his father for dying in a car accident in the real world. For three long years he had blamed his father for giving up and leaving his family when they needed him. At the scene of the accident, the paramedics told his mother that her husband had just lost too much blood and had too many injuries to be saved. Phoenix hadn’t believed them. He’d always thought that his dad could have lived – if he’d really wanted to. He thought it just showed his dad didn’t care enough about his family to stay around.

  Now, finally, Phoenix had a dim insight into what his father must have been through. His body had sustained far fewer injuries but he had been glad to let go when the pain got too much. All thoughts of Jade and getting both of them back home had become irrelevant. He hadn’t even tried to hang on.

  Somewhere, deep inside, an old knot of pain dissolved forever. For the first time in years, Phoenix could think about his father with love and regret, rather than anger and hurt. For the first time, he could painlessly remember all the great, fun things they had done as a family; how hard his dad had worked to support them; how he’d never missed any of Phoenix’s Aikido gradings or school functions.

  Phoenix struggled to come to terms with how he felt. It was like he’d somehow let his father down by not appreciating their time together; and by being so angry with him when he died. His throat closed as he fought back long-suppressed tears.

  Voices intruded on his thoughts. Someone, maybe Truda, said something about the end of the world. A somewhat stunned silence followed. Phoenix drifted slowly up from his own memories and resurfaced in this reality to glance around. Jade was staring at him, frowning and nibbling on her lower lip as she did when she was really worried.

  He rubbed a hand through his long hair and sat up. Time to rejoin the land of the living mentally, as well as physically.

  “What?” he prompted her.

  “You ok?” She cast an anxious look at the sleeping girl as though she wanted to ask him something else but felt obliged to check his health first.

  He shrugged. “Guess so. I was dead. Now I’m not. I’ll get used to it, I suppose.

  “But how...?” Jade began, apparently distracted by his words.

  “The daggers, remember?” Phoenix tapped the hilt of his iron dagger where it sat on his hip. He pulled it out, turning it so six of the seven rubies embedded in the handle glowed blood-red in the firelight. One jewel was cracked; dulled into an ugly, dirty dark pink.

  She sat up straight, pulling out her own bronze blade. He watched as understanding sank in: they each had seven lives in this game-world. They’d guessed that these might be represented by the seven rubies in their respective daggers but they hadn’t been certain. Now they were. The gems in her knife hilt were unsullied for she had lost no lives.

  He saw, too, fear dawn as she realised that he had only six lives left. It looked like there really were still four levels of the game to complete before they could hope to get home to the real world. Each level would be more challenging than the last. Half-a-dozen lives might not be enough. He grimaced at her look of horrified comprehension. They would just have to be enough. It was just a game, after all. He’d played enough to know how it worked. If he kept his wits about him, he could pull them through. Besides, it was still kinda fun – apart from the dying bits, anyway. He’d just have to avoid doing that as much as possible.

  “I don’t understand,” Marcus interrupted. “What has your dagger got to do with not dying? I thought the druid’s Spring Equinox rites must have healed you the way they did me.” He turned his bare leg to show a thin, healed sword-wound. Phoenix knew it had been inflicted only a short time before, by Roman soldiers.

  Phoenix saw Jade open her mouth. Before she could say anything, he touched her on the arm and shook his head.

  “I think Marcus has proved we can trust him, Jade. I vote we tell him everything now. We can bring Brynn up to speed later, when he wakes up.”

  Jade shut her lips, gave a reluctant nod and stayed quiet while he did his best to explain without resorting to techno-babble about computers. That would be magic in this world, anyway.

  Marcus glanced between them. “You’re saying that the two of you have come from another world to this one by magic?” He said evenly. “You have more than one life and the magic is somehow linked to your knives and those two amulets you wear?”

  Jade drew out the necklace she wore tucked under her clothes. Phoenix lifted his off his chest. Side by side, it could be seen that the amulets fitted together neatly – two curved teardrop shapes; one in pearly silver, one in gold and each with a dot of the other colour in it. It was the ancient Chinese Yin-Yang symbol, indicating Balance and Harmony.

  “Why don’t you just use magic to make the amulets take you home again?” Marcus seemed almost angry. “Why do we have to go through this?” He waved a hand around, indicating the hardships they had already encountered and were certain to meet ahead.

  “We tried,” Jade assured him, “but it didn’t work.”

  “I’m pretty sure now,” Phoenix cast a sidelong glance at Jade, who sighed and nodded, “that we have to complete all five quests in order to save both our worlds from Zhudai and get back to ours. We also,” he added as an afterthought, “have to make sure our amulets stay out of Zhudai’s hands. Evidently they would give him some sort of extra power.”

  Marcus shuddered at the thought. For several tense moments, he stared hard at them both, his face an unreadable mask. Phoenix wondered if he were annoyed with them; or even afraid o
f them. Both would be understandable. As they watched, the tension drained from his shoulders and the Roman sat down cross-legged before them.

  “And this new quest?” Marcus seemed to accept the situation, even if he didn’t understand it.

  Jade brought Phoenix up to date on what they knew of Truda and Thor.

  “O...K....,” Phoenix mused, “so the question remains: where are we and what do we do next?” He eyed Jade. “What was it Truda said before? Something about the end of the world?”

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “She said if we don’t get her back to Thor and her home by her birthday in five or six days, winter will not end; then there will be wars between gods, followed by the end of the world – they call it Ragnarok.”

  He looked at her for awhile, trying to process the information. He looked at Marcus, who seemed unfazed as he resumed rhythmically sharpening his sword. He looked at the sleeping Truda, innocent-seeming instigator of another adventure.

  “Is that the end of the world five days or so from today?” he asked, “or from tomorrow?”

  “Phoenix!” Jade seemed shocked at his cavalier attitude. “Don’t you get it? We’ve only got five days to get her home to Bilskinor before all hell breaks loose.”

  He held up his hands for peace. “I get it. I get it. I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it right now. It’s the middle of the night; in a storm; in a god-knows-where forest; and we’re surrounded by wolves. What do you want me to do?”

  “He has a point,” Marcus put in. “We’re best off getting some sleep while we can. If the storm has died down in the morning, we can work out where we are.”

  Jade flung off her furs, stood up and strode to the door and back several times before finding the words to express her obvious agitation. “But what if the storm goes on for days? What if we do get out but the wolves come back? What if we can’t find Bilskinor? What if we can’t find where we are? What if Zhudai tracks us down again; or Agricola follows us? We can’t let them get our amulets or Truda, remember?”

  “Agricola is Governor of Britain by the wishes of Titus, Emperor of Rome,” Marcus reminded her. “My father can’t leave his post just to chase us around the world. We’re safely away from him.”

  “And what about Zhudai?” she shot back.

  Marcus twisted his mouth up in a grimace. “Now that’s another thing altogether. Is that illusion spell you put on me still working?”

  Jade sucked a quick breath. Phoenix glanced at her in surprise. Had she forgotten her own handiwork? In Britain, Zhudai had been able to use his magical abilities to track Marcus by Farseeing because he knew the son of the Governor by sight. Once they’d realised it, she had placed a spell on Marcus to deflect Zhudai’s Sight.

  Tilting her head, Jade narrowed her eyes at Marcus. Her gaze unfocussed and she didn’t blink for so long that Phoenix’s own eyes began to water in sympathy. Finally, she nodded and he saw relief flicker across Marcus’ face.

  “And he’s never seen the rest of you, so Zhudai can’t know where we are,” the Roman noted. “If he can’t find us, he can’t send anyone after us.”

  Jade sank back down, some of the worry easing from her expression. “So how do we find out where we are and where we have to go to get Truda home then?”

  Phoenix shrugged. “In the morning we climb a mountain or a tree and find the nearest village and ask them how to get to Bilskinor. We know we have to return the Jewel – Truda – to Thor, so we can probably assume we’re somewhere in one of the countries that follow the Norse gods. Don’t forget the second half of our quest,” he reminded them, “We’re also supposed to get hold of Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. We need it for the third quest.”

  Jade groaned. “Stealing things from Gods is always hazardous to your health.”

  Marcus expelled a short breath and nodded.

  Phoenix scrubbed a hand across his hair. Dust flew out. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The first thing is to find out where we are and how to get to Bilskinor.”

  “So, do either of you know anything about these Norse lands?” Jade prompted.

  Marcus shook his head. “My sister’s husband, Tacitus, has travelled the Germanic countries somewhat but I confess I never read his journals. He mentioned barbaric, petty kingdoms spread across many lands and separated by a narrow sea – the Suebian Sea, I think. That’s all I remember,” he admitted. “His writings make dull reading.”

  “I never paid much attention in geography,” Phoenix admitted. He eyed Jade expectantly. She was the book-worm.

  She dropped her chin into her hand and gazed into the fire. “I’m pretty sure that the countries we call Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Germany wer…are all Norse people in our world. I just can’t remember what we call the sea that’s in the middle of them all. It joins the North Sea.” She huffed, clearly frustrated that the name eluded her. “For goodness sake! I could tell you exactly what plants grow there.” Sitting up, she stretched and twisted her back with a grimace. “We’ll have to ask someone. We’ll look pretty stupid saying ‘hey, what country are we in?’, though.”

  “The Baltic Sea!” Phoenix exclaimed, recalling a documentary he thought he’d successfully ignored in history class. “That’s what we call the Suebian Sea.”

  Jade glared, visibly irritated he had remembered it before she had. “Helpful,” she scoffed. “Now all we need to know is...oh, wait,” she said in mock surprise, “where we are and where to go.”

  “Hey!” Phoenix glared right back at her, stung. “That was uncalled for.”

  She flushed and turned away. “We’re not going to get anywhere tonight. I’m going to sleep,” she muttered. Jerking the furs up over her shoulder, she lay down with her back to the others.

  Phoenix watched her for a few moments, annoyed by her petty arguing. Why was she so hung up on being a smartass know-it all? What did it matter who knew the name of a stupid sea? When he looked up, he found Marcus returning his gaze gravely.

  “She’s frightened,” the Roman commented, putting his sword aside and stoking the fire.

  Phoenix shrugged. “We all are. Does she have to take it out on me?”

  “You’re the only connection she has to your world,” his reply was cryptic.

  “So?” He blinked at Marcus, confused.

  “You died. She was stranded here when she thought she’d be home. She was angry, scared and alone,” Marcus leaned back on his furs and crossed his legs at the ankles, staring into the fire with an oddly wistful expression on his face.

  “Oh,” Phoenix paused, suddenly understanding. It was exactly how he’d felt when his father had died: angry and scared. He rotated his shoulders, still feeling a faint ache between the shoulder blades. “I’ll try not to let it happen again. It wasn’t much fun, anyway.” He grinned at Marcus, who smiled a little in return.

  “I think we’d all appreciate that.”

  *****

  Many thousands of miles away, Long Baiyu smiled. Staring into the cold blackness of his cell, he let his mind drift. Zhudai’s shields around his cell were strong but flawed - as was much of his work. It cost Baiyu dearly to keep a light link with his rescuers over such a distance - enough to know they were safe but not enough to communicate. Now he knew they were truly on the path to complete their second quest, he could afford to rest a little.

  They had yet to realise their true goal, of course but that would come in time. With each new experience, they grew and learned – and their chances of surviving to find and free him increased. Many of the obstacles they faced were in their minds, anyway. Only when these were overcome would they truly be able to release him and themselves from bondage.

  As he let his thoughts float, Baiyu became aware of something else: the gossamer touch of another mind seeking his. Before he could withdraw, it seized him, striking and tearing at his mental shields with fearful force.

  Zhudai!

  Baiyu wrenched his mind free and wit
hdrew into the weak shelter of his exhausted body. Shivering, he strengthened his inner defences. How could he make such a stupid mistake? Zhudai’s shields were not weak. The flaws were simply a temptation. How could he let himself be lulled by the belief that his rescuers were safe away from Zhudai’s influence in Britain?

  Now Zhudai knew through which land the four travelled. He had plucked that much at least from Baiyu’s incautious thoughts. He wouldn’t know exactly where but it would not take him long to find out.

  Unable to restrain himself, Baiyu released a howl of anguish that echoed off the uncaring stone walls.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A soft, sighing sound from one of the others roused Jade from a semi-doze. She had woken when the fire died down in the wee hours. It was the first night they hadn’t set watches and she’d been too uneasy to go back to sleep after stoking the flames. The storm gentled sometime after midnight but cold still seeped through the walls of their shelter. It was now hours later and dawn eased grey light beneath the door.

  She glanced at her companions then down at the pile of fur on her lap. She was almost finished making warm clothes for their little group. When she couldn’t sleep, she’d started turning the remaining pile of furs and skins into cold-weather gear. In all the fantasy books she’d read, no-one ever had to make their own clothes. It was either not mentioned, or some kindly villager just turned up and handed the hero what he needed. Here, there was no-one. Luckily, she seemed to know how to sew in this world and she’d found a small sewing kit tucked into a chest of furs in the corner.

  The bone needle slipped through her cold fingers as she cast a troubled look at Phoenix’s sleeping form. Guilt twisted her stomach into knots. She’d heard Marcus’ comments last night and, unhappily, faced her own childish reactions toward Phoenix. She was finding this all much, much harder than she’d thought it would be. He seemed to see the whole thing as some big, exciting lark of an adventure. He enjoyed bouncing from one fight to the next; one perilous situation to another. He treated it like it really was just a computer game they would inevitably win.