I wasn’t about to argue with that. My story needed a sequel. Preferably a sequel in which I rose from the dead, regained my glam, saved the Worlds, rebuilt Asgard and was generally welcomed by all as a hero and a conqueror. A little far-fetched, I knew that. But in this ocean of mangled dreams, what else was there to do but cling to even the smallest of straws?
New runes will come to Odin’s heirs,
New harvests will be gathered.
The fallen will come home. The child
Will liberate the father.
New runes? New harvests? The fallen, returned? That interested me strangely. Mimir was bound to tell the truth, though not always in the clearest of language. It struck me that if he had really wanted to enlighten us when he first made the prophecy, he wouldn’t have chosen verse as his medium. Perhaps, I thought, there was something hidden in the text of the prophecy that Mimir didn’t want us to know. If there was as much as the tiniest chance . . .
Hope, that cruellest of sensations, bringing release in the midst of pain, only to snatch it away again just as the sufferer dares to believe. How I hated it. And yet, I kept what little faith I could. I’ve always been an optimist. And those last stanzas spoke to me with a special intensity.
Of course, the Oracle’s trick was based on the fact that everyone hears the prophecy that they most expect to hear; everyone assumes that the verse refers to them in particular. There was always the possibility that Mimir had put in that last bit just to torment Yours Truly; offering the hope of escape like the gold at the end of the rainbow, only to have it disappear every time I thought I was close.
Still, what other choice did I have? The final part of the prophecy was still up for interpretation. And if I could find a way of reading it in my favour, then that was what I meant to do. Forget the Authorized Version. The Gospel of Loki would not be complete until every scrap of hope was gone. And so I waited in darkness, and dreamed, and thought to myself:
Let there be light.
Let there be light.
Let there be . . .
THE PROPHECY OF THE ORACLE
I know a tale, o sons of earth.
I speak it as I must.
Of how nine trees gave life to Worlds
That giants held in trust.
That was the first Age, Ymir’s time.
There was no land or sea.
Just void between two darknesses,
No stars by which to see.
Till Buri’s sons brought Order
From out of Chaos; light
From darkness; life from death
And shining day from night.
The Aesir came. On Ida’s plain
The new gods built their kingdom.
Here they raised their citadel, their courts,
Their seats of wisdom.
Gold they had in quantity
From the folk in World Below,
They shaped the fates of mortal men
And sealed their own, so long ago.
From the Alder and the Ash,
They fashioned the first Folk from wood.
One gave spirit; one gave speech;
One gave fire in the blood.
I know a mighty Ash that stands.
Its name is Yggdrasil.
It stands eternal, evergreen,
Growing over wisdom’s well.
I speak now of the Sorceress,
Gullveig-Heid, thrice-burned, thrice-born,
Seeress, mistress of the Fire
Vengeful, bloated with desire.
I speak of war, as now I must
Of war against the Aesir.
The Vanir, Gullveig’s kindred
Cry vengeance for their sister.
Odin flings his spear. Now war
Is fast unleashed upon us.
Asgard’s walls are broken down;
The Firefolk, victorious.
The Aesir meet in council.
But oaths are to be broken.
The Oracle has spoken.
But I see more. There Heimdall’s horn
Lies underneath the sacred tree.
In Mimir’s well, Allfather’s eye
Was forfeit. Will you hear me?
I see your fate, o sons of earth.
I hear the battle calling.
Odin’s folk prepare to ride
Against the shadows falling.
I see a branch of mistletoe
Wielded by a blind man.
This, the poison dart that slays
Asgard’s most beloved son.
I speak as I must. The funeral pyre
Sends smoke into the fading sky.
Frigg weeps bitter tears – too late,
Her son sits, silent, at Hel’s side.
I see one bound beneath the court,
Under the Cauldron of Rivers.
The wretch looks like Loki. His wife
Alone stands by him as he suffers.
I speak as I must. Three rivers converge
Upon the gods in their domain.
A river of knives from the east; from the north
And south, twin rivers of ice and flame.
I see a hall on the shores of Death.
Acrawl with snakes and serpents.
Netherworld, in which the damned
Await the time of judgement.
In Ironwood, the Witch awakes.
The Fenris wolf will have his day.
His brothers howling at the skies;
The sun and moon will be their prey.
Night will fall upon the Worlds.
Evil winds will howl and blow.
A void between two darknesses –
What more would Allfather know?
Now crows the golden cockerel
To call the Aesir to the foe.
And in the silent hall of Hel,
A soot-red rooster loudly crows.
The wolf at Hel’s gate howls. The chain
Is broken; Loki’s son runs free.
Ragnarók is come at last,
Chaos rides to victory.
Now comes the time of axe and sword;
Brother shall kill brother.
Now comes the time of wolves; the son
Will soon supplant the father.
Yggdrasil, the World Ash
Quakes where it stands. The Watchman
Sounds his horn. In Asgard,
Odin speaks with Mimir’s Head.
The wolf at Hel’s gate howls again.
The World Tree falls; the Serpent writhes,
Lashing the waves in fury.
Now comes a fire-ship from the east,
With Loki standing at the helm.
The dead arise; the damned are unleashed;
Fear and Chaos ride with them.
Now comes the final reckoning.
Now come the folk of Netherworld.
Now comes the dragon of darkness, Death,
Casting his shadow-wing over the Worlds.
How goes it with the Firefolk?
And with the gods, how goes it now?
The day of Ragnarók is here.
I speak as I must. Will you hear more?
Flames from the south. Ice from the north.
The sun falls screaming from the sky.
The road to Hel is open wide.
Mountains gape and witches fly.
Now Odin comes to face the foe.
Against the Fenris wolf he stands.
He fights; he falls. Need I say more?
Thor will avenge the Old Man.
Now the snake that binds the world
Strikes in rage at wrathful Thor.
Thunderer wins the battle, but falls
To the monster’s raging maw.
Once more the wolf at Hel’s gate greets
Asgard’s heroes, one by one.
Battle rages, Worlds collide.
Stars fall. Once more, Death has won.
I see a new world rising. Green
And lovely from the ocean.
Mountains rise, bright torrents flow,
Eagles hunt for salmon.
On what was once the battlefield
A New Age dawns. Its children
Find the golden gaming-boards
Of bright Asgard, the fallen.
New runes will come to Odin’s heirs,
New harvests will be gathered.
The fallen will come home. The child
Will liberate the father.
I see Asgard built anew
Gleaming over Ida’s plain.
I have spoken. Now I sleep
Till the world’s tides turn again.
About the Author
Joanne M. Harris is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat (made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp) and many other bestselling novels. Her hobbies are listed in Who’s Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion'. She plays bass guitar in a band first formed when she was sixteen, is currently studying Old Norse, and lives with her husband and daughter in Yorkshire, about fifteen miles from the place she was born. Find out more at www.joanne-harris.co.uk or follow Joanne on Twitter @Joannechocolat
Also by Joanne Harris
The Evil Seed
Sleep, Pale Sister
Chocolat
Blackberry Wine
Five Quarters of the Orange
Coastliners
Holy Fools
Jigs & Reels
Gentlemen & Players
The Lollipop Shoes
Blueeyedboy
Runemarks
Runelight
Peaches for Monsieur le Curé
A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String
WITH FRAN WARDE
The French Kitchen: A Cook Book
The French Market:
More Recipes from a French Kitchen
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Frogspawn Limited 2014
All rights reserved.
The right of Joanne Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2014 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 14732 0238 2
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.joanne-harris.co.uk
www.orionbooks.co.uk
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