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“Our current situation, I hope. As we recently had demonstrated somewhat . . . vividly, many of the world’s ancient myths have a basis in real events. Take the ouroboros legend, for instance.”
“The ouroboros?” I repeated faintly. Artemis’s protection spell wasn’t my favorite topic of conversation.
“Yes. As with most cultures around the world, the Norse have a legend about a giant snake who grasps its own tail, and in doing so somehow protects the planet. In their case, the snake was Jörmungandr, one of three children of the god Loki, who could shape-shift into a reptile.”
He stepped away from the board so that I could see what he’d been drawing. Only that didn’t help much, because what I saw looked a lot like a lopsided soccer ball with eyes. Or maybe some kind of deformed squid—
“The legend states that eventually Jörmungandr grew so large that he was able to surround the Earth and grasp his own tail. He was believed to be holding the world together, and that when he let go, it would end.”
He added a line across the top of the board and wrote “Loki” in the middle. Then he made three branches coming down from it, like an abbreviated genealogical table. The soccer ball was attached to one of them. He underlined it helpfully.
“That’s Earth?” I asked, just to be clear.
“Yes.”
“And that thing wrapped around it, that’s Jor—whatever?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Can’t you tell?”
“Not really.”
He leaned over and did something to the drawing. “Is that better?”
I didn’t see any difference. Until I looked closer. And saw that the thing with eyes now also had a tiny, forked tongue.
“Jonas—”
“Now, the interesting thing about the Norse myth,” he told me, “isn’t so much how it differs from the others, but what it adds.” He drew a little line down from the soccer ball and scribbled a name below it. He looked at me expectantly.
“Thor?” I guessed, because Jonas’s handwriting wasn’t any better than his art.
“Yes.”
“God of thunder, big guy with a hammer?”
“Quite. And Jörmungandr’s archenemy. The legend says that in Ragnarok—” He saw my expression. “That is the Old Norse term for the ‘Twilight of the Gods,’ the great war that will decide the fate of the world.”
I nodded, mainly because I wanted him to get to a point already.
“The legends say that Thor will defeat Jörmungandr during Ragnarok, only to die himself shortly thereafter,” he told me. And I guess that was it, because he just stood there, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking pleased.
“I’m kind of still waiting for the interesting part,” I confessed after a few moments.
Jonas blinked at me. “But don’t you see? That is essentially what we have just experienced. The ouroboros spell was defeated, allowing the return of one of the old gods, who died almost immediately afterward.”
“But that was Apollo,” I said, my stomach falling a little more. Because if there was one thing I liked discussing even less than the ouroboros, it was the guy who had defeated it.
Apollo had been the source of the power that came with my office, gifting it to his priestesses at Delphi so that they could help him keep an eye on those treacherous humans. But once the ouroboros spell kicked him out along with the other gods, the power had stayed behind, bound to the line of Pythias who continued their work, only on behalf of the Circle and the humans he had despised.
Or at least it had until I came along. Apollo thought he had it made when a clueless wonder inherited the Pythia position instead of one of the carefully groomed Initiates the Circle kept under its watchful eye. He’d intended to use me to help bring back the bad old days of gods and slaves and nothing in between by helping him get rid of the barrier once and for all.
He’d been less than pleased when I’d declined.
In the end, I’d been the one left standing, although I still wasn’t quite sure how. But I suspected that a heck of a lot of luck had been involved. Now, as far as I was concerned, I could happily go the rest of my life and never hear that name again.
“You know, it’s really quite fascinating,” Jonas said. “But many of the old Norse gods have parallels in the myths of other cultures. From Scandinavia through Ireland, India and even beyond, their names may change, but they are essentially the same entities with the same powers and, in many cases, the same symbolism.”
“Are they?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it was coming; I could feel it.
