Down went the cargo ramp and its extensions, revealing the grey interior of the cargo bay and the swathe of multicoloured cables that rimmed the doorway. At the same time up popped the starboard entry door and out stepped none other than Odin himself. His ravens flew to him the moment the Wokka's rotor blades fell still. With one balancing on each shoulder he went to inspect the trolls, then began supervising their loading onto the helicopter. It took fifteen men to lift each troll and cart him into the cargo bay. We squashed them in there one after another like sardines, making sure they were tied up tightly with the ropes Odin had brought. Then, soon, Sleipnir was taking off, even less balletic in the air for having a couple of tons of troll stuffed in its belly. It chuntered off over the horizon, lost from sight a full minute before it was lost from hearing.
Odin stayed behind. "The pilots know the way home without me," he said, "and the mood has taken me to accompany you on the rest of your journey."
For a time we all ambled along together in a straggling column, Odin using a forked staff as a walking aid, like some beardy old rambler. He chatted with Thor and Freya, and with the troops, but I could sense him working his way towards me. Every time I glanced round, he'd advanced a little further up the line, closer to where I was.
Finally he reached me.
"Gid. A word," he said, drawing me aside.
"Ooh, teacher's pet," said Cy, with a leer.
I gave him my middle finger.
Odin held me back until everyone else had gone past, and then we resumed walking, the two of us a good twenty paces to the rear of the others.
"Reports are," he said, "you slew a jotun in single combat. And you helped signally with the capture of the trolls."
"What can I say? I'm an all-round champ."
"You do see now, don't you, that your doubts were unfounded?"
I chose my words carefully. "Let's say I'm a whole lot more open-minded than I used to be."
"But questions remain."
"They do."
"Then now's your chance. Ask away. Anything you want."
His one eye gazed at me unswervingly. Huginn's and Muninn's eyes added to the scrutiny. I felt exposed, as though the whole world was looking at me, curious, prying.
"Okay then," I said, "for starters, let's take that helicopter of yours. I guess you have a landing pad for it not far from the castle."
"And a hangar. Not far but not near. Asgard is large. Plenty of acreage in which to squirrel things away. Even a Chinook."
"The thing here, though, is — assuming you are what you appear to be, one of the actual Norse gods, in the flesh, how come you have a helicopter at all? You've named it after your flying horse. Where is that horse? Have you got that stabled out in the grounds of the castle as well?"
"No," said Odin. "No, I no longer have Sleipnir. I had to give him up. Similarly, the Valkyries no longer ride steeds but use snowmobiles instead."
"You've moved with the times, is that it? You've updated. Upgraded."
He half smiled. "To a certain extent, yes. Gods are, after all, what men make them. A thousand years ago, when horses were the principal mode of transport, naturally we gods rode horses too. Anything else would have been strange. Nowadays, when people use mechanised conveyances, there's no reason why we should not too. By the same token, we wield guns now rather than broadswords and axes. Thor is the exception. He wouldn't be without his hammer. He's very attached to it. But the rest of us have embraced the physics of projectile and explosive. Why not? If nothing else it lends us an added edge over our traditional foes. The jotuns may be content to continue to use their ice weaponry, but little good does such a reactionary stance serve them in this day and age."
"Except when it comes to one-on-one duels."
"Their way of making a point. On their own terms, with issgeisls and the like, they are formidable. It makes them feel better about themselves to capture a mortal every so often and demonstrate the virtues of their own old-fashioned battlecraft. It won't win them any wars, but it does prevent them from lapsing into utter despair. Poor things." Said with an almost fond chuckle.
"There's more to it, however," he went on, serious again. "Sleipnir is a very good example of the regrettable truth about being a deity in the modern age. Simply put, I don't have him any more because I lack the power to have him."
"Huh?" Simply put my arse. What the hell did he mean?
"I am, Gid, a mere shadow of the god I used to be. That's true of all of us Aesir and Vanir. In our heyday we were quite extraordinary beings. To stand in our presence would have been an overwhelming, mind-shattering experience for you. You would have reeled in awe before our splendour. You might never have fully recovered from the meeting, so dazzled and dizzied would it have left you."
"Blimey, talk about having a ticket on yourself."
"Whereas today, a man may walk beside me, close enough to brush my garment, and make flippant, derogatory comments, and neither is he cowed nor ashamed. That is how humbled we have become, how straitened. So much so that I cannot even lay claim to my horse. He is gone — lost. There was no tearful parting. I simply discovered at some point that Sleipnir had ceased to be one of my common appurtenances and would have to be replaced with some more prosaic equivalent. He was not to belong to me any more. Little does now. My ravens are perhaps the sole remaining legacy of my former greatness."
He chucked Huginn and Muninn under the beak with his thumb. They crooned softly.
"So, what, you're telling me you've had to downsize?" I said. "There've been divine budgetary cuts? Like the aristocracy, even gods can fall on hard times?"
"More or less," he said. "We are granted life by belief. Faith gives us form and vigour. Once, we were believed in fervently. The Norsemen worshipped and adored us. To the Vikings we were superstars, and every prayer sent up to us, every feast held in our honour, every battle waged in our name, every saga and folksong sung about us, filled us with ever greater power." He sighed, and the ravens let out odd little hisses that could have been sighs too. "Men gave willingly of themselves to nourish us and keep us. That is no longer so. Tell me, how many in Midgard these days even remember the Norse pantheon, let alone venerate it?"
"Er, not that many. We still know the stories, I suppose, but venerate? Nobody's really doing any of that."
"The stories help. They keep us alive. Whenever, wherever, someone commits a tale about us to the page or celebrates us verbally, it sustains us. It is an act of homage, whether it is done knowingly with that aim or not. It gives us credence. But the people of Midgard are largely secular now, or else in thrall to single, overarching gods who are all ideology and ideal."
"Like the God. Capital-G God."
"Yes."
"Have you met Him? What's He like?"
"We don't all get together at god club and compare notes, Gid," Odin said. "Besides, I don't believe in Him, and if He does exist, I don't like Him. His type of gods aren't gods who echo how mortals behave. They're gods who are held up as example of perfection to be emulated. They're not gods of the people. They're remote and inaccessible, and they demand blind, unthinking obedience from their followers. They're dictators. We Aesir and Vanir, by contrast, are mirrors. Other gods rule. We reflect and magnify. We are you, only more so. We share your flaws and foibles. We are as humanlike as we are divine, and I think we're all the better for that."
"Trouble is, that isn't the brand of god that's wanted in the twenty-first century."
"Hasn't been wanted for a very long time," Odin agreed, sombrely. "We are, I don't deny, superannuated. A throwback. It is, some might say, a miracle that we're still here at all. But we are. And like it or not, we still have a role to play in the affairs of men. As long as we continue to exist, we can't help but do."