Thor Meets Captain America

6

The Teutonic priests were resplendant in red and black, their robes traced in gold and silver. Platinum eagles’ wings rose from their top-heavy helms as they marched around a great circle of standing stones, chanting in a tongue that sounded much older.

An altar, carved with gaping dragons’ mouths, stood beside a raging bonfire. Smoke rose in a turbulent funnel, carrying bright sparks upward toward a full moon. Heat blazed at the ring of prisoners, each chained to his own obelisk of rough-hewn rock.

They faced southward, looking from a Gotland prominence across the Baltic toward a shore that had once been Poland, and for a little while after that had been the “Thousand Year Reich.”

The waters were unnaturally calm, almost glassy, reflecting a nearly perfect image of the bonfire alongside the Moon’s rippling twin.

“Fro must be back from Labrador,” O’Leary commented loudly enough for Chris to hear him over the chanting and the pounding drums. “That’d explain the clear night. He’s th’ god of tempests.”

Chris glanced at the man sourly, and O’Leary grinned back apologetically. “Sorry, man. I mean he’s th’ little green alien who’s in charge of weather control. Make you feel any better?”

I had that coming, Chris thought. He smiled dryly and shrugged. “I don’t suppose it matters all that much, now.”

O’Leary watched the Aryan Brothers march by again, carrying a giant swastika alongside a great dragon-like totem. The technician started to say something, but then he blinked and seemed to mumble to himself, as if trying to catch a drifting thought. When the procession had passed, he turned to Chris, a mystified expression on his face. “I just remembered something.”

Chris sighed. “What is it now, O’Leary?”

The beatnik frowned in puzzlement. “I can’t figure why it slipped my mind until now. But back when we were on the beach, unloading the bomb parts, Old Loki pulled me aside. It was all so hectic, but I could swear I saw him palm th’ H-bomb trigger mechanism, Chris. That means…”

Chris nodded. “That means he knew we were going to be captured. I’d already figured that out, O’Leary. At least the Nazis won’t get the trigger.”

“Yeah. But that’s not all I just remembered, Chris. Loki told me to tell you something for him. He said you’d asked him a question, and he told me to relay an answer he said you might understand.”

O’Leary shook his head. “I don’t know why I forgot to tell you about it until now.”

Chris laughed. Of course the renegade Aes had put the man under a post-hypnotic command to recall the message only later… perhaps only in a situation like this.

“What is it, O’Leary? What did he say to tell me?”

“It was just one word, Chris. He said to tell you—necromancy. And then he clammed up. Wasn’t much after that that the SS jumped us. What’d he mean by that, Captain? What was your question, anyway? What does the answer mean?”

Chris did not reply. He stared at the funnel of sparks climbing toward the Moon.

With his last question he had asked Loki about the camps—about the awesome, horrible, concentrated effort of death that had been perpetrated, first in Europe and then in Russia and Africa. What were they for? There had to be more to it than a plan to eliminate some bothersome minorities.

Moreover, why had Loki, who normally seemed so oblivious to human life, acted to rescue so many from the death factories, at so great a risk

Necromancy. That was Loki’s delayed reply to his final question. And Loki had told it in such a way that Chris might have his answer, but never be able tell anyone who mattered.

Necromancy…

The word stood for the performance of magic, but magic of a special, terrible kind. In legend, a concentrated field created by the death agony of human beings to drive his spells.

But that was just superstitious nonsense!

Light-headed, Chris looked out across the sand at the hulking Aesir, seated on their gilded thrones, heard the chanting of the priests, and wished he could dismiss the idea as easily as he once would have.

Was that the reason the Nazis had dared to wage a war they otherwise could never have won? Because they believed that they could create such concentrated, distilled horror that ancient spells would actually work?

It explained so much. Other nations had gone insane, in human history. Other movements had been evil. But none had perpetrated such crimes with such dedication and efficiency. The horror must have been directed not so much at death itself, but at some hideous goal beyond death!

“They… made… the Aesir. That’s what Loki meant by thinking that, maybe, his own memories were false… when he suspected that he was actually no older than I…”

“What was that, Cap’n?” O’Leary leaned as far as his chains would allow. “I couldn’t follow…”

But the procession chose that moment to stop. The High Priest, carrying a golden sword, held it before Odin’s throne. The father of the “gods” touched it and the Aesir’s rumbling chant could be heard, lower than human singing, a hungry sound like a growl that trembled within the Earth.

One of the chained Allies—a Free Briton—was dragged, numbed with dread, from his obelisk toward the fire and the dragon altar.

Chris shut his eyes, as if to hold out the screams. “Jesus!” O’Leary hissed.

Yes. Chris thought. Invoke Jesus. Or Allah or God of Abraham. Wake up, Brahma! For your dream has turned into a nightmare.

He understood clearly now why Loki had not told him his answer while there was even an infinitesmal chance that he might ever make it home again alive.

Thank you, Loki.

Better America and the Last Alliance should go down fighting honorably than even be tempted by this knowledge… to have its will tested by this way out. For if the Allies ever tried to adopt the enemy’s methods, there would be nothing left in the soul of humanity to fight for.

Who would we conjure, Chris wondered. If we ever did use those spells? Superman? Or Captain Marvel? Oh, they’d be more than a match for the Aesir, certainly! Our myths were boundless.

He laughed, and the sound turned into a sob as another scream of agony pierced the night.

Thank you, Loki, for sparing us that test of our souls.

He had no idea where the renegade “trickster god” had gone, or whether this debacle had only been a cloak for some deeper, more secret mission.

Could that be? Chris wondered. He knew that it was possible, still. Soldiers seldom ever saw the big picture, and President Marshall did not have to tell his OSS captains everything. This mission could just have been a feint, a minor piece in a greater plan.

Lasers and satellites… they could be just part of it. There might be a silver bullet… a sprig of mistletoe, still.

Chains rattled to his right. He heard a voice cursing in Portuguese and footsteps dragging the latest prisoner off.

Chris looked up at the sky, and a thought suddenly occurred to him, as if out of nowhere.

Legends begin in strange ways, he realized.

Someday—even if there was no silver bullet—the horror would have to ebb at last, when humans grew scarce, perhaps, and the Aesir were less plump and well-fed on the death manna they supped from charnel houses.

Then there would come a time when human heroes would count for something again. Perhaps in secret laboratories, or in exile on the Moon, or at the bottom of the sea, free men and women would work and toil to build the armor, the weapons, maybe the heroes themselves…

This time the scream was choked, as if the Brazillian ranger was trying to defy his enemies, and only broke to show his agony at the last.

Footsteps approached. To his amazement, Chris felt feather-light, as if gravity were barely enough to keep him on the ground.

“So long, O’Leary,” he said, distantly.

“Yeah, man. Stay cool.”

Chris nodded. He offered the black and silver-clad SS his wrists as they unchained him, and said to them softly, in a friendly tone of voice, “You know, you look pretty silly for grown men.”

They blinked at him in surprise. Chris smiled and stepped between them, leading the way toward the altar and the waiting Aesir.

Someday men will challenge these monsters, he thought, knowing that the numb, lightheaded feeling meant that he would not scream… that nothing they could do would make him take more than casual notice.

Loki had made certain of this. This was why the Trickster had spent so much time with Chris, this last year… why he had insisted that Chris come along on this mission.

Our day will come. Revenge will drive our descendants. Science will armor them. But those heroes will need one more thing, he realized. Heroes need inspiration. They need legends.

On their way toward the humming Aesir, they passed before a row of human “dignitaries” from the Reich, a few with faces glazed in excitement, but others sitting numbly, as if lost. He felt he could almost read the despair in those darkened, mad eyes. They were aware that something they had wrought had gone long, long, out of their control.

Thor frowned as Chris flashed him a smile. “Hi, how’ya doin’?” he said to the Aesir, interrupting their rumbling music in a mutter of surprise. Where curses and screams had only resonated with the chant, his good-natured sarcasm broke up the ritual.

“Move, swine!” An SS guard pushed Chris, or tried to, but stumbled instead on empty air where the American had been. Chris ducked underneath the jangling, cumbersome uniform, between the nazi’s legs, and swatted the fellow’s behind with the flat of his hand, sending him sprawling.

The other guard reached for him, but crumpled openmouthed as Chris bent his fingers back and snapped them. The third guard he lifted by the belt buckle and tossed into the bonfire, to bellow in sudden horror and pain.

Hysterical strength, of course, Chris realized, knowing what Loki had done to him. Four onrushing underpriests went down with snapped necks. No human could do these things without being used up, Chris knew, distantly, but what did it matter? This was far more fun than he had expected to be

A golden flash out of the corner of his eye warned him… Chris whirled and ducked, catching Odin’s spear with one sudden snatch.

“Coward,” he whispered at the hot-faced “father of the gods.” He flipped the heavy, gleaming weapon about and held it in two hands before him.

God, help me…

With a cry he broke the legendary spear over his knee. The pieces fell to the sand.

Nobody moved, Even Thor’s whirling hammer slowed and then dropped. In the sudden silence, Chris was distantly aware of the fact that his femur was shattered—along with most of the bones in his hands—leaving him perched precariously on one leg.

But Chris’s only regret was that he could not emulate an aged Jew he had heard of, from one of the concentration camp survivors. Standing in front of the grave he had been forced to dig for himself, the old man had not begged, or tried to reason with the SS, or slumped in despair. Instead, the prisoner had turned away from his murderers, dropped his pants, and said aloud in Yiddish as he bent over, “Kish mir im toches…”

“Kiss my ass,” Chris told Thor as more guards finally ran up and grabbed his arms. As they dragged him to the altar, he kept his gaze on the red-bearded “god”. The priests tied him down, but Chris met the Aesir’s gray eyes.

“I don’t believe in you,” he said.

Thor blinked, and the giant suddenly turned

Chris laughed out loud then, knowing that nothing in the world would suppress this story. It would spread. There would be no stopping it.

Loki, you bastard. You used me, and I suppose I should thank you.

But rest assured, Loki, someday we’ll get you, too.

He laughed again as he watched the dismayed High Priest fumble with the knife, and found it terrifically funny. A wide-eyed assistant jiggled and dropped his swastika banner. Chris roared.

Behind him, he heard O’Leary’s high pitched giggle. Then, another of the prisoners barked, and another. It was unstoppable.

Across the chilly Baltic, an uncertain wind blew. And overhead, a recent star sailed swiftly where the old ones merely drifted across the sky.