XXX

—VALHALLA, SAID VIRGIL JONES.

Valhalla: where dead warriors live on in stark splendour, fighting their past battles daily, reliving the hour of glory in which they fell, falling bloodied once more to the gleaming floors and being renewed the next morning to resume the eternal combat. Valhalla, the hall of fame, the living museum of the heroism of the past. Valhalla, close to the pool of knowledge where Odin drank, shaded by the Great Ash Yggdrasil, the World-Tree. When the ash falls, so does Valhalla.

With a slyly amused flick of the tongue, Virgil was pointing at the town of K.

The ascent of the mountain had posed no problems once Virgil had regained his strength (though not his vigour); and now Flapping Eagle stood beside his guide at the very fringe of the forested slopes, looking across a surprisingly large plain.

It was as though a vast step had been cut into the side of Calf Mountain. Flapping Eagle, appreciating the mountain’s true shape for the first time, found himself imagining a giant, using the island as a step up from sea to sky. On the flat horizontal of the step lay the town of K, hard up against the renewed mountain-wall. Fields took up the rest of the plain, some with herds of cattle, others of sheep; still others grew wheat and other crops. But it was night now and the fields were still. Farmhouses dotted the plain, glowing like worms in a garden.

Above the town, on an outcrop of the mountain, stood a single house. Its walls, in direct opposition to the whitewash uniform worn by the rest of the town, were black as jet. It was invisible now, showing no lights; but Virgil Jones knew it was there. It was Liv’s house.

Above it, the mountain’s peak was hidden in a wall of cloud.

—It never lifts, said Virgil Jones, and then silence resumed.

Flapping Eagle had not forgotten his vow to himself in that inner dimension; he would abandon his search and make his life here, if he could. So here was an end to centuries of wandering, a methuselah age of following blindly where the moving finger led. He should have felt relief; but only tension came. For any man, it is a hard thing to empty the mind of all its aims and substitute a new set, cleanly, just so; for Flapping Eagle, whose aims had been set, like one of those inner dimensions, for seven hundred years, it was an herculean task.

Virgil Jones, too, was making plans, and plans which involved Flapping Eagle at that. For now, now that he had brought Flapping Eagle to K, was the crucial time. If he should react to it (and it to him) as Virgil hoped, he would be ready for the task Virgil wished him to perform. If not, then there was nothing to be done. Virgil no longer had the strength to approach Grimus. He had had a glimpse of it, there in the forest; but it had been ruined once more, in his struggle with the Gorf. Now it was up to Flapping Eagle. Virgil derived some dark amusement from the fact that he was planning exactly what Deggle would have wished; that would amuse Master Nicholas, too, if he knew. If there were no god, we should have to invent one, remembered Virgil, and made this reversal of that aphorism:

since there is a Grimus, he must be destroyed.

This, then, was a return to a long-lost war. There would be O’Toole to face, and possibly even Liv. But there was no going back.

—Flapping Eagle, he said, I’d like to tell you this: we are all most vulnerable to the ones we love.

Flapping Eagle was only half-listening. Virgil went on, gazing into the night-mist lying lightly over the plain, giving the town itself a shimmering, insubstantial air.

—I mean yourself, said Virgil. I hope you will not end by causing me pain. I really am very vulnerable to any wounds you may care to inflict. That, it appears to me, is what a friendship means.

Flapping Eagle was listening now. Virgil had spoken haltingly; the words had been hard to say. They were a plea for help, a cry of need from a man who had now saved his life twice.

—Agreed, he said. Virgil nodded briefly.

They had been at the woods’ end for some time now. Night was well under way.

—Well, said Virgil Jones, shall we?

On an impulse, Flapping Eagle linked his left arm around Virgil’s right; and they marched, in step, comrades-in-arms, towards their separate dooms.

The moon, filtering faintly through the mist, shed white flecks on their moving heads.