The Rising Hammer

The Rising Hammer

© Rob Neuteboom

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 979-8-35093-627-8

eBook ISBN: 979-8-35093-628-5

Chapters

Chapter 1: Adrift

Chapter 2: Graduation

Chapter 3: Prospects

Chapter 4: The Cry in the Night

Chapter 5: Old Goat

Chapter 6: The Not-Date

Chapter 7: For Want of a Hammer

Chapter 8: Meeting Heim at the Bridge

Chapter 9: Birthright

Chapter 10: Confronting Demons

Chapter 11: The Plan to Get the Hammer to Save the Goat

Chapter 12: Mjölnir Returns

Chapter 13: What Embla Knows

Chapter 14: Embla’s Lineage

Chapter 15: The Light that Follows the Dark

Chapter 16: Meeting Nerpus

Chapter 17: The Pictures on the Scrolls

Chapter 18: At the River’s Edge

Chapter 19: The Giant in the Darkness

Chapter 20: A Matter of Trust

Chapter 21: The High God and the Servant

Chapter 22: No Clear Road to Asgard

Chapter 23: Consulting Babe

Chapter 24: Nerpus the Oracle

Chapter 25: Like a Rainbow

Chapter 26: Beams of a Broken Bridge

Chapter 27: Protector of Birds

Chapter 28: Vows Spoken to the Stars

Chapter 29: The Fires of Asgard

Chapter 30: The Threshold

Chapter 31: The Remnants of Asgard

Chapter 32: Orla’s Cave

Chapter 33: The Sacrifice

Chapter 34: The Well of Souls

Chapter 35: What the Voice Commands

Chapter 36: Making Promises

Chapter 37: Under Ymir’s Thrall

Chapter 38: In the Beginning

Chapter 39: The Long Trail to Destiny

Chapter 40: Standoff

Chapter 41: The Heart and the Hammer

Chapter 42: At Any Cost

Chapter 43: A Matter of Trust

Chapter 44: Mjölnir Speaks

Chapter 45: An Eye in Exchange for Sight

Chapter 46: Yggdrasill

Chapter 47: What’s in a Name?

Chapter 48: A New World

Chapter 49: The Ash and The Elm

For Mary Lou and Carole

In the beginning, there was nothing but two rivers flowing from distant points across a void. After countless millennia, the two rivers intersected. One river was hot, and the other was cold. From their collision, steam caused particles heretofore separate to accelerate, rise, and combine to form a massive body as big as a world. The body, over time, attained consciousness. It called itself Ymir.

Forlorn and seeking company, Ymir traveled the expanses of the universe. At length, Ymir met Audhumla, a creature humans might describe as a cow, from the place where the cold river originated. While Ymir had never needed to speak before, notwithstanding his heart’s silent cry for companionship in the void, he was able to form three words that captured the totality of his existence: I am alone. Audhumla, feeling compassion for Ymir, befriended and cared for the giant, even feeding Ymir an unrefined cosmic energy, its milk, that endowed Ymir with great strength. Audhumla’s energy also bestowed upon the giant the power to procreate. It was through this power that Ymir, being neither male nor female, gave birth to giants. Ymir called himself their father. Ymir’s children pleased Audhumla. Their creation meant Ymir would no longer be lonely.

Of course, feeding a giant of Ymir’s size, not to mention his growing children, was a monumental task. Audhumla was often drained of energy. The cow-like creature thus had to forage the vastness of space for a way to replenish its own energy. Unfortunately, random particles in the void could not fully satisfy Audhumla’s unremitting hunger. Thus, Audhumla had to expand its celestial pasture further and further into the void. It was through this effort of seeking sustenance that Audhumla came across a being frozen in the ice of a distant world. Audhumla slowly licked the ice away, eventually filling its stomach and freeing the trapped being. Because it could not speak at first and was too weak to travel, Audhumla carried the cold and confused being back to Ymir.

Where did you find it? Ymir asked. The giant had learned language to better converse with and, at times, reprimand his children.

Audhumla had no language. The creature stuck out its pink tongue and swiped up and down to imitate licking.

I see. Ymir was curious. The giant did not expect another being to exist beyond its small family and Audhumla.

One of Ymir’s curious daughters asked, Shall we keep and protect it?

Ymir agreed although the stranger made the giant uneasy. But Búri, the name that the being would later claim as his own, was such a small, scrawny thing that Ymir did not fear it. The giant adopted it to raise as another child. And for a time, they were all content.

This period of contentment did not last. An immeasurable time after his rescue from the ice, Búri took one of Ymir’s daughters, Ima, who had asked Ymir to keep Búri, as a wife. The family Ymir had created was growing. Although Ymir had learned how to gather and form matter, having produced places to live for the family and some clumsy forms of life to amuse his children, the giant’s creations were rudimentary and flawed, often lasting only a short time. He wanted more for his children, especially for Búri and his daughter, who needed a place for the family they would create. To this end, Ymir set about crafting a world unlike any he had previously made. Despite the skill he employed, his resources were limited, so the world felt incomplete. It was upon this tenuous world in the void of Ginnungagap that Ima gave birth to a son the couple called Bor.

The world Ymir created was not unpleasant, and Búri was grateful, but Bor, once an adult, seemed to need—to want—more. He told Búri one day, Father, the void is a dark and bleak place. Our world is flat and uninteresting. There must be someplace else we can live. To satisfy his desire for more, Bor left the void in search of new realms that might afford variety and make existence not only tolerable but enjoyable.

Ymir watched this exchange with curiosity. Wasn’t having others around enough? What did it matter where one existed as long as one wasn’t alone? What does he hope to find? the giant asked Búri.

Búri shrugged. Something different.

Ymir nodded. The giant had sought a similar escape from the tedium of floating in the nothingness of the void for longer than any of his children would ever comprehend. He desired more for his children and grandchildren than the eternity he spent longing for something that made existence worth existing for.

Bor was gone a long time, and Ymir felt his absence severely. When Bor returned, Ymir told him, Never leave home again. The giant worried that one day all his children would leave. He feared a future of interminable loneliness as he’d once known it.

Bor bowed his head. Yes, grandfather. True to his word, Bor set roots in Ginnungagap by wedding Ymir’s giantess daughter Bestla and, through her, bore the gods Odin, Vili, and Vé. They were less obedient than their parents. Once they reached adulthood, they informed their father they would be leaving. That is not Ymir’s desire, Bor responded.

Who cares? What does that old giant have to say about it? Vili asked.

We’re bored, Vé added.

Enough! Bor yelled. You will stay as you’ve been told.

Ymir nodded in the distance.

Odin remained silent and waited. He knew the giant’s power and feared that Ymir’s grip would smother them before letting them go. He also understood that as long as Ymir lived, the void would remain a bleak and lifeless place. Ymir’s essence, Odin recognized, came from the very substance of the universe. The matter of creation coursed through the giant’s veins like the rivers that created him. Odin noticed that Ymir’s eyes were orbs bright like stars, and his enormous arms, which were forever wrapped around his growing progeny, seethed with all manner of life waiting to be released.

An indeterminate time later, Audhumla fell ill. None of Ymir’s children understood what sickness was, and it frightened them. Ymir couldn’t comfort them because he had not experienced it either. Audhumla’s sudden torpidity and disinterest in food worried Ymir greatly. He asked Audhumla, while his children fretted in the distance, What can I do for you?

Audhumla shook its massive head. The cow’s look conveyed meaning without words, and Ymir heard, in his heart, Nothing, my old friend. You must care for your children now.

When Audhumla died, Ymir buried the massive creature on the world he had made for Búri. In the spot where Audhumla rested, a tree sprouted. Its branches shone as if with a golden light.

Odin’s curiosity lured him to the tree, where he touched the trunk with his hand. The tree showed him how to know the things the darkness of Ginnungagap kept hidden. Of course, such knowledge came at a price. Odin, too quickly and intimately, would learn that everything, for good and bad, came at a price. The tree would exact an eye for sight beyond what Odin could see in front of him. Odin also had to give himself over to the tree by hanging by the neck from its tallest branch until he achieved enlightenment. He waited for Ymir to leave on a long trip for sustenance to make the exchange.

During long hours suspended from the tree, Odin’s neck burned from the pressure of a thick rope until the suffering moderated to a tolerable but persistent ache. In a pursuant trance, Odin envisioned the past, the present, and the future. At the same time, his body hung in agony on the branch, his empty socket devoid of its eye radiating painfully. His mind, however, was filled with thoughts that would ensure the progression of his family.

Weeks after his sacrifice and long hours of mulling over what he had seen, Odin’s contemplations led him to a single conclusion: Ymir must die.

Soon after this realization, Odin approached Vili and Vé. His brothers huddled close, nodding as Odin shared his vision.

But how? Vé whispered.

We must be quick and our strike true, Odin explained. It must be done with this. He produced a spear carved from ice he secured traveling to the place where Audhumla had often fed.

The day they agreed to carry out their attack, Vili said to Ymir, Grandfather. I have seen a great serpent slithering across the expanse. I am afraid it will harm someone.

Ymir responded quickly. The void rocked as the giant shifted position. Show me, Vili.

As Vili distracted Ymir, Vé leaped at his grandfather’s side, causing Ymir to shift his body toward Vé, clearing a path to the giant’s heart. Odin aimed carefully. He pulled the spear back and threw it with all his might. A great wail arose in the void as the spear found purchase, mortally wounding the giant.

What have you done? Ymir gasped, a hand seeking the handle of the spear too deeply embedded in his chest to remove. My children. Why? And then Ymir said no more.

There was no rejoicing. The giants born of Ymir mourned profoundly as the corpse of their father began to hemorrhage blood, so much blood that many were soon consumed by and drowned in it. Odin watched from a distance, a tear in his eye, to have been the architect of so much destruction.

Come, said Vé, taking Odin by the arm. There is work to do.

Ymir’s body had collapsed onto the world the giant had created for Búri. As it so happened, Ymir fell directly on the tree that was once Audhumla, impaling himself through the chest. Odin and his brothers mined Ymir’s corpse for the materials to bring life to this world. They formed from Ymir’s blood rivers and oceans, raised the first continents out of his flesh and sinews, and plucked hair to plant the first trees, flowers, and grasses. Lastly, they encased the world in his immense skull, which became the sky, the giant’s brain, the clouds. When they had finished, they looked out over a verdant and thriving landscape. One of Ymir’s eyes formed a sun that gave light to the void. The tree that had pierced Ymir’s chest grew to become the life force of the universe known as Yggdrasil. The brothers called the new world Asgard—home.

Throughout his long life, Odin often walked to the sea, where the waves crashed against the rocky shore, and the water sprayed his face so that he might hear Ymir’s cries and feel his grandfather’s tears as penance for his betrayal. Even after he had exchanged his eye for knowledge of all things and understood Ymir’s sacrifice was necessary, Odin never could reconcile his heart to that truth or forgive himself, certainly not while his own children were safe in the palace constructed of rocks that were once Ymir’s bones.

Chapter 1

Adrift

Another night of fruitless searching ended in frustration. Ask dawdled down the dirt road to a house now two years devoid of his parents. First, his father and then his mother had joined their life force with a hammer that had once belonged to the great Norse god Thor, its power incomparable and unconquerable. This same hammer now rested inertly in Ask’s grasp, a silent reminder of all he loved and lost. Some strand of that hammer had once been an ax that transformed Ask into a powerful Viking lumberjack and whispered memories to him for guidance and purpose.

He pondered the word purpose for some time, deciding to settle into his rocking chair on the front porch rather than go inside to the sort of painful memories he wished to forget. Those thoughts always led him to a plethora of if onlys, I should haves, and what ifs. Invariably, these musings urged him backward to track the missteps of his clumsy decisions, searching for the one that would have changed everything, the one to right the ship, turn the tide, save his mother. But time flows like water, and the past is a phantom whose breath dries our backs. The ax, Ask considered, disentangled the past, waded upstream, and reanimated people and places as dead and desolate as Asgard left barren in the wake of Ragnarök. Bjornen created continuity and connection between present and past, Asgard and Earth, between father and son. That is what he longed for–connection–like when he had walked in dream the memories of his father. Purpose, he concluded, made meaning through connection.

Ask set Mjölnir down on the porch. The first couple of months, Ask had urged the hammer to speak with him. He had at one time spoken to Mjölnir as he would have a man of flesh and blood when he pleaded with the hammer’s energy to spare his mother’s life. Of course, Mjölnir could not reverse the blow Ask had landed to extricate Freyand from his mother’s body. Mjölnir compromised with Ask instead, promising to absorb his mother’s essence as the ax once had his father. Perhaps Ask had expected Mjölnir to speak to him often after that compromise by becoming the companion Bjornen had been, so it panged him deeply that Mjölnir remained as silent as, well, a hammer. Ask was met with that silence when he implored to speak to his mother. Given his experience with Bjornen, Ask knew Mjölnir had the power and knowledge to create such an opportunity. This made the hammer’s silence even more maddening.

Moreover, to add insult to injury, Mjölnir had shown Ask a vision and planted within his heart a singular mission–to find a scraggly-haired, green-eyed teenage girl–but hadn’t given him any direction, only a vague sense of purpose. There he was again, back to the word that had prompted his musings, as well as his frustration. Too often, his journeys brought him right back where he started. Only now, he found himself with a purpose devoid of connection.

The door creaked open, and Orla emerged from the house, a glass of ice water in hand. I thought I heard you sulking out here. Any luck?

Ask huffed. Frankly, I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

It will come. In time, Orla encouraged, her eons of life giving perspective to the angst of his teenage impatience. For now, we need to get you and Deonte to graduation. It’s a big day.

Big day, thought Ask, more like big deal. The milestone of high school graduation seemed insignificant compared to battling giants and wielding a magical weapon. Truth be told, since the ax and spear merged, Ask’s mind had been further enlivened to the extent that he remembered everything he heard, a sort of eidetic condition, compounded by an ability to connect information quickly. He found his intellection leaps and bounds ahead of his classmates. At times, it seemed as if answers simply appeared in his mind. The short of it was that school no longer posed a challenge. As a result, it bored him nearly to tears. The worst part is that even though he entirely disengaged, nobody was the wiser because he aced all his tests. He was a ship sinking in a harbor, where the harbormaster assumes the cleated vessel is safe and never raises an alarm.

Will you rest before we go? Orla asked.

Ask shrugged. He rarely slept anymore. No instructive dreams awaited him, and the hammer had endowed him with a nearly inexhaustible amount of energy. What was sleep but a chance for the past to sear his mind and trample his heart? I don’t think so, he said. I’m not tired.

Nor last night or the night before, Orla chided. After a pause, she added, It’s your turn to get Deonte up.

Orla’s reference to Deonte was as direct a reference as either made to their friend, who had taken to having a drink or a six-pack every night. Drinking had been Deonte’s response to the monotony of the past two years after defeating Hyrrokkin. Ask stared at cans and bottles lying in disarray on what used to be his mother’s pristine porch. He sighed. Ask hadn’t handled things any better, but the drinking and the cans were overt reminders to them all of an increasing sense of futility. Before he could force himself to wake his friend, Deonte pushed open the screen door and stumbled out onto the porch. He squinted at the light spreading across the fields. Big day, he repeated what Orla had said, working his mouth as if it were full of cotton.

Big deal, Ask said aloud this time.

This is it, big shot, Deonte added, your chance to make something of yourself. The irony and the implication lingered between them for a few moments. Anyway. At least we have summer to look forward to. Deonte inhaled deeply, breathing in fresh morning air.

Ask thought of the last days of school he and Deonte had shared over the past decade or more. He always felt as if they stood at a threshold to something marvelous, the closing of a door that represented the less pleasant past, the trials of living, and the opening of new possibilities, not yet jaded by events that shaped their reality. He sadly realized that he would never have that sensation again. That perceived threshold now consisted only of doors slamming in perpetuity before him, and not even a ray of hope could penetrate the insistent dark, the heaviness of that past.

Orla stood. I suppose we should get ready. An email said you must be in your seats by ten o’clock. It’s 8:15 now.

Let’s not go, Ask suddenly blurted. Look, it’s over. We served our time. There’s no obligation any longer.

I like where this is going, Deonte said.

Orla hesitated; Ask could see her deliberating over something, her icy stare frozen on a nail protruding from a deck board. She shook her head. No, I don’t think we ought to miss this. Again, a hesitation, that careful deliberation. Your mother, she began and then amended, Your mothers would have wanted you to attend.

Oh man, Mom’s not even here, and she’s still telling me what to do, Deonte huffed. Whatever. It’s like, what, a couple of hours? Deonte tested beer cans, hefting them until he found a full one. He pressed the tab and quickly drank the suds that bubbled above the smile bead. A couple of these, and I’ll be right as rain. He pointed his finger at Ask. And this time, it’s your turn.

Ask’s heart lurched in his chest. He shook his head and turned toward Orla. No way. You’ve got to be his aunt this time. He didn’t think he could bear Orla taking the form of his mother again.

I’m afraid Deonte’s right, Orla said. It makes more sense that your mother would attend than Deonte’s aunt, Ask. She’ll be expected.

But, he began, only to give up before he uttered a single counterargument. What could he say? Every time you transform into my mother, it confuses the hell out of me. That was part of it. The rest, he didn’t have the courage to tell Orla, or himself. How could he make sense out of carrying his mother’s essence in a hammer, a weapon responsible for her death? When Orla took Idun’s form, Ask felt the presence of ghosts intent on dredging up and chaining him to the past. How could he ever move forward when the visage of his most painful loss kept him tethered to that moment, always on replay in his mind? The swing of the ax, the impact of the poll, the bruise darkening her chest, the energy leaving her lifeless body—these were the images that accompanied Orla’s transformation. But Ask hadn’t the strength to try to explain. I’ll go change.

Heim watched Ask from the bed, ears perked as if sensing something was amiss. Ask spoke partly to himself and partly to Heim as he buttoned up a fresh shirt. It’s such a waste of time. I should be out turning over stones looking for, well, whoever the hell she is. What is high school anyway? A weigh station on the road to nowhere, that’s what. Graduation is a meaningless gesture at the end of a pointless journey. What he didn’t voice aloud was this peculiar hesitancy that manifested like a painful hiccup in his chest whenever he thought about life after graduation. Did he honestly believe, as he’d once naively told Deonte, he could go off to college, start a career, and live behind a white picket fence protecting a mortgage? I guess it’s an obligation, he said aloud. You’re lucky, he told Heim. You get to stay here and nap.

In the bathroom, he ran a comb through his blond hair, which he’d let grow long, and then clomped downstairs, where he nearly ran into his mother in the entryway. He came to a dead stop. Even though he knew it was Orla, the yellow plaited hair, the golden eyes, the familiar summer dress—the resemblances he’d seen so many times before hit him with such force this time that he stepped back three paces. He looked away. Sorry, he muttered.

It’s okay, Ask. Orla had even mastered Idun’s voice.

He pushed past her and out onto the porch so that he might find some space to breathe. Deonte was nursing another beer. It’s about time, he said. For someone who wants to skip this thing so badly, you sure went to a lot of trouble sprucing up. Deonte had merely swapped shorts for jeans. You okay? Deonte asked. You’re really pale.

Ask thought again about ghosts. I’m fine. Just want to get this over with.

Deonte guzzled the last of his beer and crushed the can. Sounds good to me.

Ask wondered how often their lives now consisted of getting things over with.

Chapter 2

Graduation

No one spoke on the fifteen-minute drive to the high school. They parked near the football field, which the school had filled with chairs for the ceremony. Ask was content to fall in line with the other graduating students, leaving Deonte behind, as Orla, disguised as Idun, climbed bleachers with the other parents. Ask watched his friend with a measure of indeterminate disgust. He would never truly come to terms with his mother’s death if Orla kept wearing her face. Only a gust of nostalgia disrupted his thoughts as he passed the tree where he and Orla had once chatted about the summoning. He felt it again seeing the statue of the Mustang that had remained in perpetual rearing over the years, forever rising. He wondered if those hooves threatened to stomp on him now. He partly wished they would.

In the hour that preceded the graduation ceremony, the graduates marched to awaiting folding metal chairs, where they sat, stood after a long wait, and eventually walked to a makeshift stage. At that stage, Principal Berry droned on over the microphone about how students would receive diploma cases, not diplomas; those would arrive later by mail. Even this ceremony assumed a sort of façade. At one point, the line, which was supposed to progress smoothly from seats to stairs to the stage, suddenly halted, and Ask bumped into the student in front of him. He thought his name was Marek. The impact was powerful enough to send several graduates stumbling forward into each other like dominos. A few hit the ground. Heads swiveled to see who’d disrupted the tedium. Ask heard Jepp say, Friggen Ask. The failure of that friendship, though years behind him, took on acute poignancy, as he thought of all his losses as a compounding experience like reverberations from a hammer hitting a metal sheet.

Amidst this despair, Ask’s eyes fell on Sheryl Ann. She looked at him and smiled. This unexpected kindness jostled something loose in him, disrupting his gloom. He involuntarily smiled back. He recalled the first time he saw her in eighth grade. She had been assigned to work in a group with him. The class might have been History, but he couldn’t remember. He listened as she told