Casting an Eye

(Thjazi is dead and Idunn has her apples once again. Odin is going to visit Mimir for the first time since he placed the head by the well. He is traveling as Vegtam…)

The star to the north stared at me the same way it always did at night. Nothing ever changed it and I began to think of it as a friend. The last light of the sun was falling into dusk. One great iceberg peaked up in the distance, on the ocean's horizon. We were both going somewhere; we were both lone travelers. Our paths were different and far apart, but I felt like we had crossed before.

I walked along the beach. The tide was out and the summer low tides gave me just a little more sand on the rocky beach. The salt was undetectable in the air; the rain had bathed the shore all afternoon, but as the sun set most of the clouds retreated for the night. It was going to get unusually cold tonight, even in the middle of summer. And many times the warmer weather only meant a colder ocean. But I was not looking for pleasantries.

When the Vanir sent back Mimir's head I was both confused and frustrated. At the time I could not spare my anger. There was too much to think about like giants attacking and rebuilding our defenses. In the middle of the conflict I left temporarily to restore my old friend as best I could. I resuscitated him and gave him life without a body. Just a head. I sent Hugin and Munin, Geri and Freki to take him far away to the abandoned well of knowledge that Urdr had told me about. Now that the world was coming to a calm I had the time to pay a visit to him, and help him find a new body.

I was getting close. The well was in a small cove between two rocky capes. I had to wait until this time of the year. The waters off the coast are too dangerous with rocks; the capes are too steep to climb over by any normal means; I could not change myself to fly, not this time. This was the easiest way and I felt like it would draw little attention, this time of the evening.

The star to the north stared at me, one eye looking down. Keeping things a secret can draw attention, sometimes, and doing things with purpose in the open can sometimes make a person disappear. I did nothing to hide myself. My large hat was better suited for keeping shade and only kept my head just a little warmer than it would have been bare. I wore a large coat that covered me from shoulders to ankles and I held my spear Gungnir, though I had detached the spearhead and hid it on my back. I looked like an old man.

A sneaker wave came close to me as I crossed the southern cape and walked inland. I wanted to feel the cold water to remind me of what it was like to play as a child. I let the waves hit me. My boots filled up with water and each step sloshed, slowing me down and giving me away to anyone who might have been watching. Sand over-collected painfully under the arch of my feet and between my toes like expanding bread.

There was more beach with sand between the capes. A small stream came down between them. I listened for the tiny waterfall; it told me where I was going. The ground was rocky between the sand and the woods off the beach. I sat down on a boulder to empty out my boots. Starlight glimmered off the waterfall. Any evidence of day was now gone. I used the ends of my sleeves to dry out my boots and wipe out the sand. My cold, numb hands squeezed out my socks and found more gritty sand. I rinsed off my hands with water from the stream.

I used the spear shaft to push myself up along the way, making noises to announce myself. I told my ravens and wolves to stay behind, not to come; I wanted to know if Mimir still lived from firsthand experience. Now I had to find my way, alone.

There was no trail, but the stream cut a path between the bushes and the trees. Their leaves turned to blue and black in the low light. Everything was still wet from the rain earlier that day and the moisture on the leaves glowed. A little farther and the stream suddenly stopped into the rock face. I was drenched and exhausted, but it was something I had not been in a long time. The exertion kept me warm. I decided to wait before I ditched my hat and coat or built a fire to warm and dry myself.

The abandoned well was the source of this stream. I hiked uphill and made myself dirtier in the mud. I could feel the grime digging itself painfully between my fingernails. It was difficult to get there and I wanted to keep it that way. I preferred the idea that the well remain a secret to many. My hands were sore from grabbing roots and branches to pull myself up the incline. I pondered the idea of reassembling Gungnir and throwing it back to Hlidskjalf. I wanted to stop and rest.

Suddenly after pulling myself up, I fell forward and down. But not too far. I landed on a paved stone surface, crushing the brim of my hat. The sound of the ocean, of water crashing, sounded like it was no longer coming from in behind me, but in front of me. It was the well. But I could see nothing. The canopy of the trees allowed only for the sky directly above me to shine in. Clouds were gathering up again, and the moon was new.

"Is anyone there?"

"Sleep," replied a whisper. "We well talk in the morning, traveller."

No longer having the strength to keep myself awake, I crawled up in my coat and put my head down on the ash staff.

I woke up the next morning to no startling surprises. I stood up slowly, expecting to find Mimir, in some form or another. I fixed my hat as best I could. The crease in the brim was off to my left. I angled it down and turned it to make sure that my face was a little more difficult to see. It had been some time since I had seen Mimir, and there was no doubt that it was he who spoke to me last night. But he sounded different. And now, he was gone.

The well was just as loud this morning. It sat above an underground river. The people who were here originally used it for a holy place. The well was on a slope and inland between the two capes in the middle of wilderness. A small temple made of marble, granite, and basalt. The rain had weathered the marble. In most places it was smoother than it had been. The basalt looked like the skin of an old whale. Everything was wet from rain that had fallen just before dawn. And the morning dew only accentuated the black-grey rock. Where had the granite come from?

The sun was red and the sky orange, but soon it would mix with the blue of a summer morning near the sea. Surrounding the temple were evergreens and slopes. The temple was dug into the hill with a wall going all around, varying in height with the grade of the ground. Only a few ferns dared to grow out from gaps between the paved stones. Within the walls, the paved ground spread up to the well, nine steps higher, like a on a stage, awaiting an audience. I only stood there, thinking about how sacred this place was to the people who were here before. I felt like breaking the silence would desecrate the well.

"Good. You are awake now." I could not see who was speaking. "I am the keeper of the well. You know where you are. Tell me who you are and why you have come."

"Perhaps you have heard of me. I am Vegtam, the skald." It was always good to start out with a deception, to keep the upper hand. "I have traveled far to come here, to the place of my ancestors." If the voice was not my old friend, I needed to be cautious; I was in the open, and nearly defenseless since I did not know where he was.

"You are a rarity, Vegtam. Your people have long since passed from the world of Midgard. You…"

"I am one of the last," I interrupted. "I am here to see what is left of the well that long ago served as a source, both for water and for knowledge. I did not know there was still someone who kept the grounds."

"Well let me tell you about a time before. Before. Your people were peaceful, living in the northern part of the world. They lived in the thawing world with the Fylgjur, Landvaettir, Vanir, and Alfs. Your people were simple in the ways of magic, but they had hearts and spirit with more power than the Norns. When Ymir and the Frost Giants came they gathered up your people. They were relocated to the south in the lands of Muspell. Cities burned to the ground and roads were flooded in blood. When the Frost Giants were sure they had collected everyone and destroyed everything: genocide. The other civilizations would have been next if it had not been for Audhumla and her Ice Men."

"She fought Frost with Ice."

"How did you survive, Vegtam? It is not completely uncommon from a people to be hunted down and exterminated, but you are unique."

And now I stopped my lies, and traded them in for ambiguity. "I could not tell you anything of the world before the giants. And there is much I do now know about my own family or where we came from. But one thing I do know is that we did not leave a guardian for the well."

"You are correct. Odin of the Aesir left me here." Mimir! "Step towards the well. Drink from it and perhaps the water will grant you the knowledge of your people."

I faced the well and carefully stepped forward. Gungnir pulled on my back, wanting to fight the invisible speaker. I carefully dropped the pole to the ground. It tapped five times and then rolled to the wall. I continued to walk up the stairs to the well. Hanging over the side was a large wooden bucket, big enough for a horse to drink from, that looked older than my disguise that was tied to a rope. I picked up the bucket.

"Odin, you liar!" His yell startled me, and I nearly dropped Mimir, who was in the bucket. "I knew you would return some day, but I did not know you would take so long or that you would come disguised as someone else. Do you not trust me? Could you have at least made me a body?"

"I have been trying to hold the giants out of Midgard."

"And beyond that, there is something much more pressing to talk about. You are failing the world, Odin. And more importantly, if you do not turn yourself around, you will fail humanity the same way the Vanir did before with the people of the well."

"You tell me this very instant how I have failed humanity!" I yell at Mimir, my voice a fury of flame. I leaned in closer to the bucket. "How am I leading them to genocide?"

"You are misleading them! The humans are not Aesir and the more and more of them that conduct those meaningless sacrifices…"

"I am not responsible for them!"

"Even so, you are an influence. There have been enough public murders in your name that it should have grabbed your attention! Think Odin, that's what you're best at, is it not? You might send Thor out to stop a thousand giants from crossing into Midgard, but in the mean time, the apple rots from the middle out. And the growing power of the patriarchy is killing both the men who are good and the women in general. I have not seen you for so long, Odin. But from what I have seen, it is difficult not to think that perhaps you are intent on destroying them."

The human sacrifices. Ever since word made it to the world of Midgard of the treatment of Freyja when we burned her over and over again, some people have taken a turn to the worse. The humans are not inherently good or bad. They just are. And some of them have learned to be evil.

Mimir continued his lecture. "Have you been misleading humanity since the beginning? Why all the deaths? Even without the sacrifices, what is the point of the Einherjar? Why are you building an army?" But in the case that this were the truth, that I had actually been leading them in order to mislead them, was I responsible or were these killings just coincidence of a mortal insane gone astray?

I looked down the well. I could see my reflection, not far below. There must have been an entire cavern below with gold. The sound of flowing water, like an ocean, sang up with small mist drops that touched my beard. I was not speaking to Mimir. "I identify with you the most, though I might be blind from a thousand years of change. I, waiting to be born, to write down the stories of my people. Of our people. Did you exist outside of stories? Do I exist?"

I walked to the wall and pulled on ferns and branches and bushes that dared reach above the wall. Roots clinging to their precious soil tumbled on the stone floor. On my knees I made the shape of a man using the dirt for flesh and wood for bones. I wrote and ansuz with my finger in the chest. "This will resolve at least some of my debts to you, old friend. Just before dusk the body will be ready."

"So I'll be a Dvergar. Well, things could be worse."

"It's all I can do for now. You'll have to stay out of the sun."

"But the topic at hand. What are you writing, Odin? And why are you building an army?"

I turned to Mimir to give him a glimpse of my sound mind. "I am working for the Norns, old friend. I am both completely faithful to their orders, but skeptical of their answers. They speak to me in riddles and answer me with questions."

"Even so, the people starve. If it is true that you act not as a role model for the humans, but as a peer, you are a miser in your wealth."

"I am not so unfair. I save countless spirits of humans. Freyja, I learned from her the way to save spirits of the dead. And Hel, I have brought her up well and given her purpose other than to destroy like the rest of the Jotnar. With her the old and weary find refuge."

"I do not deny that the good you have spread is important. But there are simple actions and richer things. Think of the good the humans could have if you gave but one of every gold ring dropped. Yes, I know of your ring Draupnir and its secret magic."

Mimir was right, at least about that part of it. How much have I been hoarding away and for what purpose? I turned back to the golden water at the bottom of the well. "Knowing and not knowing, but thinking even in ignorance. I ignore nothing to thinking, but my actions discriminate one choice from many. What I do is by but partial chances of chances. So if my actions are what constitute who I am, then my being is by slim odds. For ever possible course I have pondered, but there exists not the time nor the means to travel every road. And if this one chain of choices, one after another, is what dictates who I am, am I to judge it? Is the next person? And what if they choose to judge me differently? From one instance to the next, am I changed? No I reject that, generally! I am me to myself and only to myself. Everything else to everyone else is personal taste. And I am no opinion."

Mimir looked at me with less aggression, and more caution. My ideas were what troubled him, not the irrational spreading of death and violence that he had attributed to me. But his emotions had simmered down; he squinted and took a deep breath.

"You had me frightened, old friend. It has been too long, since the war. I never really recovered. I blamed you for that, what the those few Vanir did to me, and I blamed you for what the humans were doing to each other. It all spelled the beginning of the end. I know why you are here, Odin. You seek the knowledge of doom." He stopped talking, and his breath became faster and shallower. But after a moment, the wind picked up, cold and creeping. He took another deep breath and sighed, staring at me straight in the eyes.

But I was still angry. I was angry at my old friend for hating me and at myself for leaving him twice to his fate. I stepped back towards the well. I began to digress. "Tyr, you old warrior! Even with Idunn's apples to keep your youth I can still see your age. But I hesitate to judge, for as I have just explained, the world can change from one eye to the next."

"Odin, offer something to the well. It must be something important. Is it really worth it?"

"Of course it is. I know what to give it. So you have your answer, Mimir." And with that I, Odin, proceeded to rip out my eye and dropped it down. Then I carefully lowered the bucket to the water and after one draft my remaining eye could see better than had I never gouged out the other. And in the reflection of the water of Mimir's well I could see the eye in my head burning brighter than the sun itself. I turned to the sky to face it and I swear the sun blinked that I was so bright.

But in my eye I saw the futures of Gods and humen and alfs and dwarfs. I could see giants and snakes and flying birds of prey. Midgard set afire under the sea and Asgard a blaze in the heavens. The doom of all Gods. Sometimes I think I never smiled again after that visit to Mimir. I had to collect my thoughts, so from here I would return to draw what I had seen and plan and make sense of it all.

"You understand it now. Or at least that it will happen," Mimir observed from my transformation. "You see why I have been so angry. Midgard will fall and after it, Asgard. What will you do now?"

"Now, my friend I will write until there is nothing left. I will figure this out on stone, in case I fail, someone will need to be able to pick up from where I left off. And if we make it past the doom, someone will need to remember it."

Mimir looked at me, this time with a different face. He already knew the doom, and he must have given up or he would have told me before. "Go. We will see each other once more, before the end."