Kevin Hearne - Hammered

The thunder god emerged from the sea looking every bit as angry as I felt. He took the hammer from his belt, where he’d secured it during his swim, and shook it threateningly in my general direction.

“Coward! Show yourself! You who slew my goat! Answer for it!”

“Will you answer for slaying the leviathan?” I said. My voice boomed from every direction, and the thunder god spun, trying to locate me.

“I have nothing to answer for!” he shouted. “I did the world a service.”

“Do the world another and slay yourself. That creature was harming no one.”

“Foolish mortal! It was about to eat you!”

“We were speaking peaceably and you murdered it without divining its true intent. And I am not mortal.”

His expression turned incredulous, then composed itself into a contemptuous sneer. “What are you, some sorcerer who keeps serpents as pets?”

I replied in the same tone, “What are you, a thickheaded, arrogant god who thinks immortality excuses all sins?”

The sneer left his face, which reddened as he shouted in a circle, making sure I heard him. “That creature was a spawn of the world serpent and as such was my rightful prey! I merely practice for Ragnarok. What was your purpose? Jörmungandr will not wait for any man’s permission to attack Asgard, so I shall not stay my hand against those who would hasten its coming.” He stalked over to his chariot and yanked my spear out of his slain goat before tossing it into the fjörd. Then, with a touch of his hammer, he resurrected the beast, who looked a bit wild-eyed but otherwise none the worse for having been dead.

“Witness the power I wield, whoever you are,” he said. “I am life and death. Vex me further at your peril.”

He waited for a reply, but I made none. The time to vex him further is now; it was not then.

Satisfied that he had cowed me sufficiently, he mounted his chariot and snapped the reins, flying back into the dark clouds that had concealed his approach.

From that day to this I have mourned the loss of my unnamed friend and cursed the name of Thor. He ripped from me the wonder of the ocean; he stole from all men the knowledge of a world they can never inherit. The Finns may no longer need an old wizard to watch over them, but Thor still needs to answer for his callous murder.

I have salted my hatred and cured it, stored it in a dark cellar of my mind against the day when I could let it be my only nourishment. The day is finally come, and I will tear into this meat and savor its taste.

Väinämöinen’s last words were a guaranteed applause line with this crowd. Perun suggested that it called for a toast. He pulled a bottle of vodka from somewhere and started pouring. I joined in, more out of appreciation for his lyricism than from any bloodthirsty sentiment against Thor. What had stunned me from the moment he described his unnamed friend was how it recalled what Odysseus had told me in Hades—I hadn’t been lying when I told Granuaile that the sirens had spoken to him of hasenpfeffer and sea serpents. What they’d said, essentially, was a bunch of rubbish to the fabled king of Ithaca, but to me it all made perfect sense. They had sung to him a series of prophecies that were far more accurate than anything Nostradamus spewed forth.

That was the attraction of the sirens: not promises of power or riches, but bewildering, tantalizing prophecies that made men leap from their ships to go ask the crazy bitches what the fuck they were talking about. Or, if that didn’t work, then they leapt when the sirens said they knew what would happen to the sailors or to the sailors’ families. Odysseus lost his shit and demanded to be freed from the mast when they sang their prophecies about Penelope and Telemachus.

Odysseus never saw any of their prophecies come true, but I did. He related to me what they said—word for word, because they were burned indelibly into his memory—and they were creepily accurate. They’d predicted the Black Death in Europe and the breadth of the Mongol Empire. They said things like, “The red coats will be defeated in the New World,” and “Two cities in Asia will perish under clouds shaped like mushrooms.” They added that “A man with a glass face will walk on the moon,” and “People will never get along in Jerusalem.” Only one of their predictions hadn’t come true yet: “Thirteen years from the time a white beard in Russia sups on hares and speaks of sea serpents, the world will burn.”

Cue the shivering violins. Had I just witnessed the beginning of a final countdown? Was Väinämöinen the herald of the apocalypse? It occurred to me, rather uncomfortably, that if this final prophecy of the sirens came true, it would be shortly after the time Granuaile completed her training and became a full Druid.

Correlation does not imply causation, I reminded myself. Maybe the sirens were talking about global warming.

Perun was growing more convivial the more he drank. He was pounding two shots of vodka to every one of ours. Aside from getting happier, he showed no other effects of inebriation. Perhaps this was one of his godlike powers.

“Is time for my tale, yes?” he said, rising smoothly to his feet and grinning amiably at us. “You maybe thinking, Perun just jealous of Thor. He does not want to share sky. But you would be wrong!” He pointed a finger at me and then waved it around clockwise to indicate everyone. “Plenty of sky for all gods. Plenty of men and women to make worship, plenty of vodka—hey.” He halted, raising his eyebrows at us and holding up his bottle. “You want more?” No one took him up on the offer, so he shrugged and poured himself a shot.

“I drink alone, then.” He tossed it back, winced appreciatively at the burn in his throat, and exhaled noisily.

“Ahhhh, is good. Good, very good. Now, listen like thieves.”

I looked at him sharply to discern whether he’d intentionally alluded to an INXS song, but he appeared unconscious of making any pop culture reference at all, and no one else seemed to recognize it.

“I tell you what happened. But I tell it short, yes? English is no good for me.”

Americans say all men created equal. These words very good. Make men feel special. They know is not true, not really, but they always say is true, and they point to these words and say, Ideas like this make us strong. They turn mouse into bear. They turn dog into bear. Everything can become strong like bear if you think with American brains. But if everything is bear, what do bears eat?

Americans want magic, perfect world. But these places only seen in movies. People never equal, same as animals never equal. There is always predator and prey. Little fish make dinner for big fish, yes? And there is always bigger fish.

Is same with ideas. Exact same. Small ideas eat up by big ideas. Big ideas stay for long time in brains of men. Small ones forgotten; is like little fish eaten up by big fish.

Gods are big ideas. They stay for long time in brains. They walk on earth or live in sky or water or under ground. But even gods can be eaten by bigger gods.

I was eaten by Christ. You see? Christ ate many gods. I mean he ate me as idea, not as flesh. He ate me and other Slavic gods. He ate Celtic gods and Greek gods, Roman gods and Norse gods—even Väinämöinen here—and took their places in brains of men. Some of those old gods are dead now. Men have forget—no, forgot—them.