He sprang.

Eyjolf and the housecarles found him in the morning. A wind had awakened. Whitecaps chopped. The rope creaked as Hadding swung to and fro. On each of his shoulders perched a raven. They had not taken his eyes. As the men drew near, they spread black wings and flew off eastward.

XXXV

Leaves rustled, alive with sunlight. He stood beside an lash tree whose trunk was mightier than a mountain and whose crown reached higher than heaven. Those boughs spread as wide as all the worlds, and he knew that three roots ran down to three of them, the worlds of the gods, the giants, and the dead.

Wind tossed his hair. He glimpsed a lock. Its hue was golden. His clothes were the blue, green, and white of summer seas. When he walked forward over ground hidden by low-eddying mists, the lameness was gone from his step.

One stood awaiting him, tall, gray beard falling over bluegray cloak. Only the right eye shone below a shadowing hat. Its look struck as keenly as would the spear he held.

His voice rolled thunder-deep. “Greeting and welcome.”

The newcomer halted before him. “So we meet again,” he said slowly. “You told me we never would.”

“Never on earth, while you were what you then were. But that is now ended.”

The newcomer passed a hind across his brow. “I do not understand.”

“No. You have made the longest trek of all and are still bewildered. But you shall soon remember that which you laid aside for a span. Come.”

They set forth across the clouds. “It was needful,” said the Wanderer. “Great was the wrong you suffered, and great was your wrath. When you foreswore our friendship, you were wholly within your rights. Yet the sundering would have led to another war among the gods, a war that would have brought them down in untimely wreck. How could we cleanse ourselves of what had happened and make whole again your honor?

“The word of the Norns cannot be gainsaid. That which is done is done forever. But seeking through time, with the knowledge I won on the far side of death, I found that deeds may be done over again in the morrow, and thus may a wrong be set right. They must be true deeds, however, done without foresight of their meaning, a life lived in and for itself.”

“I begin to see,” whispered he who had returned.

Also he saw with his eyes. Somehow he and the other had already walked down from above the sky. It reached half-clear, half-cloudy over the high hillside on which they now were. Rain had lately fallen. The wet grass flashed with its drops. Nonetheless sight swept far and far, across woodlands, meadows, homes of men, and the sea roaring along a broad strand. A rainbow glimmered.

“But this is earth!” he cried.

The Wanderer nodded. “You ken it again—better, I think, than ever aforetime.”