‘I need your talents,’ said Odin. ‘The Vanir gave me their knowledge, but even runes aren’t everything. I brought this world out of blood and ice. I gave it rules and a purpose. Now I must protect what I’ve built, or see it slide back into anarchy. But Order cannot survive alone; its laws are too fixed; it cannot bend. Order is like ice that creeps, bringing life to a standstill. Now that we’re at peace again, Aesir and Vanir, the ice will creep back. Stagnation will come. My kingdom will fall into darkness. I cannot be seen to break my own rules. But I do need someone on my side who can break them for me when necessary.’

‘And what do I get in return, again?’

He grinned and said: ‘I’ll make you a god.’

A god.

Well, you’ve seen the Prophecy. Odin was already tacitly taking credit for the creation of the Worlds as well as the birth of humanity. Thus:

From the Alder and the Ash,
They fashioned the first Folk from wood.
One gave spirit; one gave speech;
One gave fire in the blood.

Folk have a tendency to assume that the third one, the fire-giver, was Your Humble Narrator. Well, I may be guilty of many things but I’m not taking the blame for the Folk, or anything to do with them. Wherever they came from, it sure as Hel wasn’t a couple of trees and Yours Truly. And whatever the Oracle really meant, it was not to be taken literally. Still, it was a common tale, and did no harm to Odin’s burgeoning reputation as the daddy of us all.

For now, back to the story, and Odin’s promise of godhood.

Well . . .

He had a point about Chaos, I thought. There are advantages to being an independent entity. In Pandaemonium, I knew I would always be a spark in a forge; a flicker in a bonfire; a drop in an ocean of molten dreams. In Odin’s new world, I could be anything I wanted to be: an agent of change; a firebrand; a worker of miracles. A god.

Which all sounded quite appealing, but . . .

‘Of course, you could never go back,’ he said.

I thought about that too. He was right. Chaos may not have rules as such, but it does have laws, and I knew its lords had ingenious ways of dealing with people who broke them. Still . . .

‘How would they even know? Like you said, I’m a drop in the ocean.’

‘Oh, I would need assurances of your good faith,’ said Odin. ‘Look at it from my point of view. It’s going to be hard enough for me to explain your presence to the Aesir. I need to be sure of your loyalty before I open Asgard’s gates.’

‘Of course,’ I said.