The only reliable way to get to Odin without dying was to cross the rainbow bridge Bifrost, into Asgard. Problem was, it bypassed Earth without stopping. Besides, no mortal could cross it anyway; it was too fragile. I had to come up with another way to get to Odin.

A really convoluted, arguably crazy way.

According to the old stories, a man could find his way into the underworld-without dying first-by locating a very deep cave, and following it down to the echoing bridge that led from Earth into Niflheim, the "underworld"-not precisely hell (sincethat was called Niflhel); but certainly not heaven, either.

The old stories also said that Loki was chained in the underworld as punishment for killing Baldr, Odin's favorite son. He would remain there until the twilight of the gods and their final battle at Ragnarok.Sleipnir-through a biologically improbable series of events-was Loki's son.

And Sleipnir-bless his big black heart-was the only creature in the combined nine worlds able to cross between any two of them at will.

Voila: All I had to do was catch Sleipnir and ride him to Asgard. Once I got Odin within arm's reach, I would wring his cursed neck for him. Piece of cake. Always assuming a human being could kill a god, of course. . . .

The one thing Icouldn't do was just sit and do nothing. Ihad to believe one man could change what was happening, because to believe in predestination-that everything was fixed and immutable, that nothing you did meant spit in the long run-was to believe that Gary and I, the rest of humanity, everything we'd accomplished as a species was worth nothing. It meant we hadn't done anything more meaningful than run headlong down Somebody's elaborate rat maze. I wouldn't buy that.

I might be an asshole; but I sure as hell wasn't a rat.

The gods were mortal, after a fashion. They were all slated to die at Ragnarok. If everything were foreordained, and ran according to rules as immutable as the physics that governed nuclear fission, then Fenrir would kill Odin, Thor would die of poison blown by the Midgard serpent, and traffic-accident victims would always end up in Niflheim, not Sleipnir's teeth.

But if everythingweren't foreordained . . .

I didn't know if I could kill a god; but I knew I had to try. If he could snatch victims from insignificant traffic accidents, who could guess what bigger and better "accidents" he might arrange? It wouldn't take much meddling to blow the lid off the uneasy peace we had going at the moment. That would sure as hell give him a steady supply of bodies. He had to be stopped; and there just wasn't anybody else I could think of in any position to stop him.

The Norns-hiding under the roots of the world tree, where the great rainbow bridge spanned the gap between Asgard and the Norns' shadowy hall-made the rules Odin had been breaking.

I didn't much care.

I was not only going to break the rules, I was going to play another game altogether. Which left me waist-deep in a freezing river somewhere in the middle of a Norwegian mountain.

I don't know how long I slogged through the cold water, putting one booted foot carefully ahead of the other and forcing my shivering body to keep moving. My watch had tritium-coated hands and numbers, which meant I could see them even without the carbide light; but my brain wouldn't register the time properly. I knew I had to get out of the water soon or I would freeze to death.

Unfortunately there was no end to the river in sight. The walls began to narrow down again, causing the current to pick up. My legs were so numb I was having trouble keeping my footing, and the only thing that saved me from falling a couple of times was grabbing for the walls. The rough stone cut my hands, so I braced myself long enough to dig a pair of wet gloves out of my butt pack. They were cold and soaked; but saved the skin of my palms several times during the next few minutes.

I was shivering so hard now, it was a race between the numbness and convulsions as to which would dunk me in the end- My footing disappeared without warning. I dropped off a shelf and floundered, choking with icy water up my nose. The weight of the pack dragged me under. My waterlogged boots hampered my efforts to kick toward the surface. I flailed desperately and managed to get my face above water long enough to gasp.

I stared wildly into utter blackness. Not only had the carbide lamp hissed and gone out instantly; but the current had dragged my helmet away into the darkness, gone before I could even think of grabbing for it.

A low rumble grew ominously in my ears. The current-which had picked up sharply-dragged me mercilessly along. Blind, half frozen, I flailed both arms, and scraped my hand against the wall. I tried to grab hold; but only managed to scrape up my arm without finding purchase. Kicking hard slewed me sideways in the heavy current, then smacked me hard into the wall, sooner than I expected. I tried againto grab hold, scrabbling with hands and feet.

The roar grew louder and the current picked up more speed. Try as I might, the river scraped me along the wall (leaving bits of cloth and skin behind) toward a dropoff-a cliff, or chimney, no doubt- which certainly lay ahead. When my feet bumped into something, it took my brain a couple of seconds to register the impact.

When realization sank in, I kicked hard. There was a shelf of rock, very narrow, under my feet. I tried to brace myself on it; but the current was too swift. I ended up sliding sideways on tippytoes, trying to maintain contact with the ledge.

The roar had grown to a deafening thunder, and the current dragged at my clothes and pack, trying to drag me bodily off the tiny shelf. My head bumped into something extremely hard and I ducked instinctively.

I almost lost my balance, and flung both arms upward. My hands smacked against the ceiling.

Primate instinct took over from the lizard brain. I jammed my feet against the bottom and braced my hands hard against the ceiling, and halted my slide toward doom. Thus supported, I was able to hold my position; but I wasn't sure how long I could maintain my stance, shivering as hard as I was.

There was obviously onemutha of a hole somewhere up ahead-and very close, from the sound of it. My tunnel was narrowing down so fast I'd be completely underwater soon-if I didn't get dragged down the hole first. I was so cold I couldn't think what to do; trying to reason felt like trying to swim in Jell-O. The only coherent thought I could dredge up wasn't particularly useful. To wit, if I let go of the ceiling, I was going to drown, assuming I didn't first hit the bottom of the hole into which the river was pouring.

The germ of a thought percolated into my numbed brain and I braced myself carefully, letting go with one hand to fumble inside my shirt pocket. Sure enough, my emergency cyalume stick was still there. Ripping the foil off with my teeth, I held one end against the ceiling and applied pressure to the other end. The plastic outer tube bent until the glass vial floating inside snapped. I shook vigorously, and was rewarded with a cool, chemical glow which lit my surroundings.

I stood jammed against one wall of a six-foot-wide tunnel, with dark water racing by so fast it made me dizzy to watch. The cave ceiling arced down to meet the water some fifteen feet ahead. Either that, or that was where the river dropped off into the hole, and the tunnel dropped off with it.

Somewhat desperately I scanned the wall and saw a roundish patch of darkness maybe two feet this side of the dropoff point. A side tunnel? Big enough for me to get into? Or just a small hollow that led nowhere? Even if it were a tunnel, could I hang on against the current long enough to drag myself into it? Not that I had much choice either way.

With nothing to lose but my life-which I figured was long since forfeit anyway-I clenched the cyalume in my teeth and inched forward, fighting the drag of the current, until my arms ached with the strain of pushing against the ceiling. The current tore at me so strongly, I didn't dare raise my feet.

Instead I shuffled along, scraping my boots against the rock riverbed.

Closer, and I could see the opening: hole, all right, and big enough for me to squeeze into, even with the pack. The edges and inside surfaces were rounded and worn smooth from water, suggesting that the level of the river was considerably higher at times, bleeding off part of its flow into this side chute.

The side passage floor was at chest level. Could I drag myself up into it, with muscles frozen stiff and trembling from exhaustion, before the current dragged me into that bottomless pit? I didn't give myself odds on that one; but again, there wasn't much choice. I thought briefly about easier roads to Hell, and muttered something obscene around the lightstick clenched in my teeth.

I wasnot going to dive down that waterfall.

I reached the opening and braced myself. I was going to have to let go with my right arm. I shut my eyes, and drew a deep breath around the cyalume; then grabbed the edge of the hole. The current slammed me sideways. I bashed my elbow against the side of the new tunnel; but I wasn't swept away. I fought to shuffle back against the current, while pulling against the edge of the tunnel as hard as I couldwith my right arm. I gained about six inches, which put me more or less back in front of the hole again.

Walking my fingers along-while maintaining pressure against the ceiling with my palm-allowed me to reach the edge of the tunnel. I tensed and tried to ready myself for a lunge that would be my one and only chance. Bearing in mind Yoda's immortal words, "There is notry . . ." I emptied my lungs, filled them again, and emptied them once more (which wasn't easy with a cyalume stick in my mouth). I attempted to calm myself and closed my eyes to concentrate. . . .

Water yanked my feet sideways. I landed with nearly rib-cracking force against the right wall. My breath slammed out in a guttural grunt and I almost dropped the cyalume stick. My right arm was crushed against stone. I dragged myself forward half an inch, an inch, two inches. . . .

The river pulled madly at my legs, dragged me back again. I clung sideways, face jammed against rock, left hand scrabbling for purchase, and thought wildly about the knife in my boot sheath, where it did me no good at all. . . .

I cursed; then dragged my right leg painfully up out of the water. I worked my knee up along the wall while I tried to find some sort of toehold with my other foot, and did it the hard way. I clung with my left hand; then made a grab for the knife- My fingers closed around it. And as I twisted and slipped and started to fall back into the river, I jabbed the blade into solid rock. It sank straight into the wall. And held.

I pulled myself up two inches; got my other knee out of the water; felt the strain in the knife as it began to bend under my weight. I collapsed forward onto the ledge with startling suddenness. My feet hung out over space, clear of the water.

I rolled flat onto my stomach across the cyalume stick, and felt my hand drop. The haft quivered as my fingers slid away. I lay in utter blackness, my feet barely clear of the water.

I was still alive.

I tried to smile. Good old knife . . . it had even managed to get rid of Johnson for me. My eyes closed all by themselves. Poor, stupid Johnson . . .

The day had begun decently. It graduated to miserable in short order, and left me convinced to my socks that Somebody Up There had taken very serious notice of one otherwise insignificant GI.

It was supposed to have been a classic ambush. Things had started out well, in fact, despite the conditions. After a bad blizzard, the weather had turned clear, with bitter temperatures and worse wind chill. Hauling sixty-five pounds of gear, I had slogged through snow that drifted knee-deep in places.

Johnson stumbled ahead of me, muttering incoherently. After the rainy warmth of Oregon, returning to Germany's biting cold had been a shock.

With Lieutenant Donaldson in charge of the exercise, Staff Sergeant Myers as our squad leader, and Wally as acting fire team leader, we had experienced, trustworthy personnel running the show.

Which was something of a relief.

Donaldson barked orders into the freezing air and we got moving. Setting up the ambush beat standing around freezing to death. We positioned ourselves in a crescent-shaped deployment back up in the trees on a fairly steep hillside.

Below us a small road snaked along the edge of the hill; we centered ourselves on the outside of a ninety-degree turn, far enough from the crest not to be visible against the skyline if we stood up, but close enough to the top to scramble over it quickly. We'd spring our hit-and-run ambush on the convoy expected through sometime during the next two hours, then melt away over the ridge.

On the far side of the road, twenty yards or so distant, was another stand of woods. On our side, a snow-and-stubble covered field stretched away to the right, toward another woodline. We were in a good position; Donaldson knew what he was doing. Down on the far end of the crescent, Simpkins'

squad had set up their M-60 machine gun to command a clear view down the road as it departed from the corner. At the other end, the weapons squad was setting up another M-60, positioned to rake the road in the other direction.The result was the classic crossfire pattern, which in combat would have forced the enemy off the road in our direction, right into the fire of four eight-man rifle squads lying in ambush between the machine guns. In addition, my squad had two 90mm recoilless rifles, which looked like old-time World War II bazookas, but had more range and carried a lot more punch.

None of this impressive array of weaponry was, of course, loaded for our training exercise. The brass, in their wisdom, had determined there was enough chance of us dumb troopies hurting ourselves on a training maneuver, without the added risks of live ammo. Given the presence of troopies like Johnson, I was, for a change, inclined to agree.

All of which meant the three guys carrying 40mm grenade launchers attached to their M-16s didn't even have dummy grenades with them. The only "weapons" we had with us were blanks for the M-16s and the M-60s, a collection of pocket knives, and the ubiquitous entrenching tools that infantrymen since the days of Julius Caesar have carried with them in order to dig fortified emplacements. (Which was the only way to get your ass out of the hand-to-hand stuff without succumbing to cowardice.) The major complaint I had about the setup was being ordered to take cover in two-man positions.

Under battle conditions, one man would rest or sleep while the other kept watch. But . . .

I'd been teamed with Johnson.

To give him his due, Donaldson probably didn't know.

For my position, I'd chosen a tangle of bushes that concealed me from both the road and the hilltop. About ten feet to my left, Monroe fed a belt of blanks into the M-60's tray with a minimum of clanking and rattling. Then as he and his partner concealed themselves, I settled into the shallow trench I'd dug between my chosen bushes. Since I'd carefully distributed the excess dirt and snow smoothly beneath the bushes where it wouldn't show, I was nearly invisible from every direction.

Johnson was directly to my left. I could just see Wally and Crater over beyond Johnson, between him and Monroe. Gradually things got quiet as everybody settled in; within ten minutes the only sound I could hear was the wind and Johnson squirming in the snow.Moron . We waited, got colder, then colder still. At moments like this I understood why Uncle Sam wantedme . Nobody with brains would confuse this sort of thing with the patriotic satisfaction all the recruiting posters prate about.

That made me think of Gary again. I felt like a broken record, stuck on "raging mad." But if I let myself dwell on it, they'd end up locking me up in Leavenworth for life, because Johnson wouldn't come out of the ensuing brawl alive. That misbegotten little idiot had actually protested that the relief would be too short-shifted if I left for the funeral. Amazing, how strong nine healthy infantrymen can be. . . .

I'd almost gotten to his throat anyway.

Johnson shifted around again, so that snow crunched loud as a rifle report under him.

"Keep still!" I hissed viciously.

He flipped me the bird, but subsided.

I forced my concentration back onto my job. No convoy in sight. No trace of advance scouts anywhere. I held in a sigh.

Damn, it was cold.

As we lay there, waiting for that stupid convoy to show up so we could shoot the theoretical shit out of it and then get moving-and somewhat warmer again-I found myself uneasily wanting to glance over my shoulder. For reasons I couldn't fully explain, the skin on the back of my neck prickled, and my right palm itched. As the feeling worsened, I began wishing I had a loaded pistol, or even a decent knife.

I would even have welcomed holding that weird black thing Gary's grandmother had given me.

I tried to shake myself out of my mood. Maybe I should have taken more leave time, after all. Here I was on routine winter maneuvers, and I felt as jumpy and disquieted as the night Sleipnir had- Snow crunched, from somewhere behind us. I stiffened. Then it came again: a stealthy footstep, almost silent, from behind and to my right, in the trees farther up the hill. . . .

I swore under my breath. Wouldn't it figure the aggressors would come scouting through the woods ahead of their column? It occurred to me that-since I seemed to have more acute hearing thanthe rest of the guys-probably no one else had heard it.

I did a lightning-fast review of our tactical situation. Our primary objective had been concealment from the road; but as far as I could tell, we were concealed from the direction of the hilltop, too, unless someone moved, betraying our position. We were pretty good at what we did.

Abruptly I swore under my breath. Archibald Johnsonwasn't . . . . Then I had two of them in sight, all but invisible in snow-and-winter-tree-bark camos. They were moving down between the trees, toward the field. My glance fell across the rifles they carried- -Ahh,shit .

Those weren't rubber training AKs they were carrying. They were as real as the sudden fear-stink in my nostrils. I focused my gaze, and saw dark faces, thin noses, black Palestinian eyes. . . .

Ragheads.

They were already among us, still without having seen a thing. From my position I could see Wally's eyes; but only because I knew exactly where to look. I could tell he'd seen them, too; he looked as scared as I felt.

I glanced at my rifle-loaded with nothing but training blanks-and speculated upon the kind of stopping power blanks might have if things got hot. The M-16 didn't even produce a useful muzzle blast; most of the gas vented to the side. I eyed the entrenching tool lying close beside me, and swore under my breath. Great, a useless gun and a shovel. That made me feelmuch better.

Intent on their own movements, they still hadn't seen us. I uttered a tiny prayer-butnot to Odin- that they'd just keep going, never seeing or hearing a thing, like ships in the night.

And they might have; but for the contribution of Mr. Model Soldier. Two feet away, Johnson shifted again. Snow crunched under his damn belly. The ragheads spun, crouched-and Johnson saw them for the first time.

I held my breath. Johnson gave a grunt of surprise and- SHIT!.

-made a reflex grab for his M-16.

Bark exploded from the trees. Bullets tore past my head and a cloud of snow erupted from the ground. I heard Crater yell, and suddenly Johnson was cowering behind a tree trunk. I fired the blanks in my rifle, with exactly the results I'd expected-none. The M-60 was blazing away, too, with no more effect than I'd had. If it had been closer to the bastards, the bigger blanks might have done some damage -but this wasn't horseshoes.

The only cover between me-flattened out in the snow-and a hail of live bullets was an all-too-thin screen of low bushes. Fortunately, on full-auto, their fire only lasted about two endless seconds; then their last hot brass sizzled into the snow.

I took a quick personal inventory.

I wasn't hit.

I knew I was going to be surprised about that when I got around to it.

Instantly, I launched toward the nearest raghead, entrenching tool in hand. He saw me coming and tried to hurry home another magazine but jammed it. He didn't get another chance.

Midspring, something warm-somethingthatfeltlikeflesh-wrapped around my wrist. Before I could react, the death-black blade of Gary's knife had buried itself in the raghead's belly. It sliced upward through cloth and flesh like so much soft cheese. A scream split the air- Followed almost instantly by a curse from the other raghead. In his haste, he'd managed to drop his second magazine in the snow. I grinned in his face and the knife slashed out. A greenish aura swirled within the very substance of the blade as it severed the raghead's hand. His rifle-and hand-dropped to the snow. Without slowing, the knife continued upward through the raghead's throat, and cut short his scream.

I whirled and stopped. It was over. There had been only two. I found myself on my knees, pantinghard, staring in abrupt amazement at the impossible knife clutched in my palm. The heavy blade was streaked with red against the snow; so was most of my uniform. Only now did I realize that the long, curved "tail" of the haft was somehow wrapped snugly around my wrist.

Twice . . .

Likewise-now that it had my undivided attention-I could tell that the flesh-textured surface of the haft was indeed radiating a perceptible warmth against my frozen skin.

I looked more closely. Call it a hallucination, but those damned eyes weretwinkling , visibly-and the haftmoved within my grasp. Somehow, from somewhere, I was getting the impression of laughter. . .

But even as I stared, the eerie glow died away, and the knife was flat black again. I yelled and shook my hand violently, trying to shake the thing loose. It fell to the snow, and blurred-or maybe it was my vision- I shut my eyes. When I opened them again, a bloody entrenching tool lay in the snow before me.

"Hey, Randy-"

A hand fell on my shoulder. With a shout I convulsed sideways. I landed sprawled in the snow and my cheek touched something warm and wet. I jerked away and looked down. It was the raghead's severed hand. Still twitching in the snow.

"Man, you okay?" Monroe looked scared and worried and awestruck at the same time.

"Uhng. . . ."

The guys crowded around. I sat up slowly. Someone was yelling for the lieutenant, and someone else was yelling for the medic. Everyone was talking at once. I felt sick and dizzy; it was difficult to follow what was going on.

Sergeant Brown shouted for order and formed us into a circular defensive perimeter-fat lot of good that would do, but itfelt right-while Lieutenant Donaldson radioed Captain Jones that we'd had a real incident, somebody trying to steal weapons, and that shots had been fired. The L-T was also bright enough to call for another platoon-anarmed one-to search the area for other terrorist patrols.

"How many down, Sergeant?" I heard him call.