Of course, he didn’t understand. The closest he’d ever got to Chaos was through Dream, its ephemeral sibling. And primitive people always imagine their gods to be something like themselves; at best, a kind of warlord, with a warlord’s mentality. For all his intelligence, I could tell that Odin would never understand the scale and the grandeur of Chaos – at least not until the End of the Worlds, by which time it would be too late.

‘I’m going to rule the Worlds,’ he said. ‘I have power, gold, runes. I have the finest warriors the Worlds have ever seen. I have the Sun and Moon. I have the wealth of the Tunnel Folk—’

‘Lord Surt isn’t into possessions,’ I said. ‘This is Chaos we’re talking about. Nothing has substance, or order, or rules. Nothing even keeps to the same physical Aspect. These things you care so much about – gold, weapons, women, battlements – I’ve seen them all in your dreams, and none of that means a thing to him. To Surt, it’s all just cosmic debris; flotsam and jetsam on the tide.’

‘Forget Lord Surt for a minute,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right. But what about you? It seems to me that someone like you could be a big hit in my camp.’

‘I bet they could. What’s in it for me?’

‘Well, freedom, to begin with. Freedom and opportunity.’

‘Freedom? Do me a favour. Do you think I’m not free?’

He shook his head. ‘You think you are? When there are Worlds to discover and shape, and you have to stay in one place all the time? You’re no more than a prisoner of this Surt, whoever he is.’

I tried to explain. ‘But Chaos is, like, the hotbed of creation. Everything else is just overspill. Who wants to live in a septic tank?’

‘Better a king in the gutter,’ he said, ‘than a slave in an emperor’s palace.’

You see, that silver tongue of his was already making mischief. And then he started to talk to me of the Worlds he’d visited; of the Middle World, abode of the Folk, where already the people of Asgard were beginning to be worshipped as gods; of the Tunnel Folk of World Below, toiling to bring out gold and gems from the darkness; of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, its roots in the depths of the Underworld, its head in the clouds of Asgard; of Ice Folk; of the One Sea; of the Outlands far beyond. All ripe for conquest, Odin said; everything new and up for burning. All that could be mine, he said, or I could go back to Chaos and spend an eternity shining Surt’s shoes . . .

‘What do you want from me?’ I said.