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need great men. You can be their chief!"
Martell only smiled.
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"Would you be a god, Martell? My brothers and my children must be reborn too. They will need hosts.
A man who is a sword could well be Tyr, god of war. Think of that, Martell!"
"I have a God."
"You have no power-lust? What of knowledge then? I can tell you things that would set your mind
blazing. I can tell you where to dig to find the greatest undiscovered hoard of Viking loot in the world. I
can tell you legends long forgotten would you know how Arthur of Britain came to Norway, and what
he did there? I can tell you that story and show you how to prove it. Or I can give you the power to walk
in your dreams as I walk, and see and hear and feel the past as it happened. Tell me I do not tempt
you!"
"You tempt me." Martell shivered. "What of it?"
"Not even that? Then think on this this self-devouring nation has made a law now to suppress the
very belief you've embraced. And mark what I say, this is only the beginning of the persecution. In my
world you'll have an honest enemy, one who'll fight you fairly and not gas about openmindedness while
outlawing every opinion but its own."
"You speak well, and you have a point, but I can't do anything to stop what my government is doing.
You I can stop."
"I am sorry. I would have had you for friend and sword-brother. I would have called you son. I am a
chieftain who gives great gifts."
"I know a greater."
"Then I must descend to threats. Either I will be the sacrifice, Martell, or this woman will. I think your
greater God would not honor your integrity if you let her hang just to protect it."
Martell opened his mouth but found no words in it.
"You know I'll do it! Come, you wish my death and so do I why should we be at loggerheads?"
He strode nearer the tree and took up the rope-end.
"Why waste time, Martell? I've left you no choice. That is the way of gods." He pulled up the slack.
Something in Martell screamed,"LIE!" There was a lie here, and he needed to name it.
"The sword, Martell! Use the sword!"
Martell said, "What you want is false. I can't perform a false act. I am a sword."
Oski cried,"There is no man so true as a sword, and no sword is wholly true!"
"YES!" cried Martell, and he saw it at last. He raised the sword, and beheld his reflected face shining in
the blade. Looking deeper, he probed the heart of the thing and yes! the sword had a flaw.
"It's true," he said. "I am flawed, and the sword is flawed. My flaw is my own fault, but the sword's flaw
is yours. It cannot be wholly true becauseyou are a lie!
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"I may be no god, or king, or hero, but I am more than a lie.
"I am your master!
"You think you know who you are, but you have no inkling! How could great Odin be a thug and a
bully? Only by being a lie. Poets know who you are, and any ten-year-old with a book of legends knows
who you are, but you don't!
"There was always a high Odin and a low Odin. The high Odin inspired poetry and bold deeds, while
the low Odin deceived and lied and buried his face in corpses with the ravens. As you dwindled through
the centuries, you lost the glory that once reflected your Creator. There's nothing creative left in you now
all you can dream is destruction. The poems Sigfod Oski made were his own without his genius
you couldn't have made a limerick. You are a parasite. You are, in truth, a gelding. You've become
merely Loki. Loki was always Odin's separable soul a lecher and father of monsters. He walked
among the gods but was never of them, for he could not raise his eyes higher than his belly. He held
godhood in his hand as a child holds a weapon, dangerous in his ignorance.
"You don't know what you're for, Odin, and you don't know what I'm for, and you don't know what a
sword is for! I am a sword, and I am my Master's, so I know. A sword is for breaking!"
Martell raised the sword heavenward and looked upon it, channeling his truth-sense into it, bearing
down, seeking the flaw with prehensile thought.
"You are a sword, Martell!" cried Oski. "Break it and you will surely die!"
"True," said Martell, and the sword exploded in a thousand gleaming shards, and Martell bowed to his
death.
And it was as if he fell from a great height, and time was stretched, and he saw Odin standing
beneath the ash, tall and gold-helmed and night-cloaked. And the wolf came leaping down the
hillside toward him, howling his joy.
And when Odin saw the wolf, a weird light kindled in his eye, and he stood, arms stretched wide,
to receive the beast.
And it seemed to Martell that Odin's mouth gaped wide, wider, impossibly wide, and straight into [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
