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Wolf Time

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

ODIN'S DAY

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

THOR'S DAY

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

FREYA'S DAY

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

WASHING DAY

CHAPTER XII

THE LORD'S DAY

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX

AFTERWORD

WOLF TIME

Lars Walker

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

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Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-57815-4

Cover art by Gary Ruddell

First printing, June 1999

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

For Dad and Pauline

Axe-time, sword-time —

Every shield shattered.

Wind-time, wolf-time—

Then the world is wrecked.

—fromThe Voluspá(Sigfod Oski's translation)

PROLOGUE

April. A Tyr's Day.

The tractor backed, roaring, and the log chain went taut.

Old Jack Tysness opened the throttle of the rust-orange Allis Chalmers and clenched his teeth. The oak

had been tough, but he had her now. He'd felled her with the chainsaw and grubbed her roots with spade

and axe, and now the stump would come like a tooth. He always pulled his own teeth.

Men with machines could be hired to clear land, but that would have been the easy way, and a waste of

money. He'd had that lesson from his father, who'd had it from his own father: first you get the work

done, then you can look to your comfort.

Jack's great-grandfather had built the barn that still stood on the farm; raised it while his wife and baby

muffled one another with love in a lean-to. The baby had died that winter, but there'd be other babies,

and where would they be if they lost the cows?

So Jack in his turn had looked to the stock, looked to the fields, from year to year. It would have been

nice to have finished high school, but dangerously comfortable and a temptation to get above himself. The

house was lonely and run-down — it needed paint and a woman's hand, but there had always been

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another job to do; the time for comforts was always next fall or next spring.

And now he was old and alone, shunned even by neighbors, and neighbors in the country were farther

between than in the old days. The Twentieth Century had decamped with the small farm in its baggage.

Jack's sole heir was a niece somewhere out in California, who would certainly sell the 160 acres to an

agribusiness when the time came, and that would be that.

Jack still hated his father, but did not see the irony.

The stump cracked, groaned and moved. Snapping she came free, and the tractor raced back a few

yards. Jack flipped in the throttle and cut the engine.

He walked to the stump and spoke to it. "That's it then," he said, and spat. "I been grubbin' the trees

along this row for thirty years, and you're the last. You shoulda growed across the fence there, in Troll

Valley. That's woods — this is farm. I don't suppose you coulda knowed that a hundred years back,

when you was an acorn, but that's how it turned out. Anyway, what kick you got? I'll never see a

hundred.

"What's this here?" The corner of a flat, squared stone stuck up from the dirt and roots. Jack hadn't seen

its like in his fields before. He bent closer and brushed with hard fingers.

"By God, there's writing here!"

The sun was going and Jack's eyes weren't what they'd been. He got his ax and chopped at the roots.

He'd nearly severed the thickest root when his ax slipped. It struck the stone, spitting sparks, and there

was a sharp crack. The stone fell in two pieces, one on either side.

Jack cursed. A carved stone could be valuable, and he might have spoiled it. He was kneeling to look at

the damage, dreaming of a Florida vacation, when he heard footsteps in the grass.

He peered up to see the craziest man he'd ever set eyes on, except for some of the college kids in town.

The man wore a wide, floppy hat and some kind of dark blanket. He had a long gray beard, and in one

hand he carried a stick taller than himself. He stopped a few feet away and fixed Jack with one bright

eye. He swung his stick up and held it chest high and horizontal, as if offering it for inspection.

"I don't take no tramps here," Jack said, getting heavily to his feet.

The crazy man smiled, his teeth very long and white. Jack saw that his stick was wildly carved with

snakes and crawling things, and weighted with iron. The crazy man spun the stick like a baton twirler, but

with both hands. He flipped it around his back, danced it from hand to hand. He threw it high in the air.

Jack watched, fascinated, as it soared and spun and fell.

It was the last thing he saw.

ODIN'S DAY

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CHAPTER I

Carl Martell was frightened.

He locked his office door, creaked down the hallway, down the steps and out through the lobby of the

Old Main building. The student essays on his desk would wait. Most of them would have to be scored

on VQ's anyway, and grading them under the present conditions seemed a little unsporting. Not to

mention futile.

He wondered if he should grow a beard.

It was almost 6:00 p.m. The committee had told him to come back by six and they'd probably have a

decision for him.

It was October, cool and clear, with a fresh breeze. Martell stopped a moment to see if Cerafsky's

Comet was visible yet, but it was too early. He'd taken a personal interest in the latest comet, feeling

somehow that it had a message for him, like the Star of Bethelehem. He wouldn't have admitted this to

anyone of course. Unless they'd asked him.

Martell headed down the sidewalk, dark under the shade of tall firs despite the moonlight and street

lamps. He decided to take an alley shortcut to the Campus Center and turned between the library and a

storage building.

He'd gotten about fifty feet when sudden footsteps pounded up behind him.

Martell looked over his shoulder and ran from bulky shadows, his chest tight, his mouth open.

Hands clutched him from behind. An arm went around his neck. Another pinned his right wrist. He

smelled sweat and aftershave.

"Don't make any noise," said a big young man, only a shape in the dark, who came around in front of

him, holding up a hunting knife which caught a gleam of moonlight. "I'm a friend of Julie Anderson's. I

want to have a little talk with you in private."

"I didn't do anything," Martell said, between gasps. His voice sounded thin to him, almost squeaky. He'd

always wondered how he'd react to violence. It was as bad as he'd feared.

"That's what you keep saying, Carl-baby. But you know you're lying and we know you're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"I'm gonna get the truth out of you, Carl-baby. Maybe those fat-butts on the committee can't get it out of

you, but I will. Give me the hand, Billy."

The man holding Martell stretched out the arm that gripped his wrist, proferring Martell's hand as if for

inspection. He was strong as a back-hoe.

The young man placed the knife edge against Martell's palm. "Now you're gonna tell the truth or I'm

gonna cut you. You forced Julie to sleep with you, didn't you? You promised her you'd pass her in

History if she put out, right?"

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The knife edge was a slice of supercooled interstellar vacuum against Martell's flesh. He floundered in his

mind for words, but the only one he found was, "No."

The shock of the slash took his breath. He mouthed, "Oh, God," and the young man struck him twice

across the face with an open hand, so that stars flashed under his eyelids.

Then the blade was against his cheek, and he could feel the warm blood. "I don't want to kill you,

Carl-baby," the young man said, "but I'm gonna get the truth from you."

"It is the truth, I swear!"

"You're asking for this! Don't make me cut your face!"

"I never — I never touched the girl."

"Then lie! Just give me the satisfaction! I need to hear you say it!"

"Nothing happened." Martell clenched his eyes shut.

CRACK! Something burst above them, exploding in bright light and shouts. The knife blade was gone,

and the hands that held him were gone, and Martell toppled to the sidewalk, striking his head. He was

out for a moment, and when he came to he pushed himself up to a sitting position and found that the two

young men were now lying on either side of him. He feared for a moment they were dead, then heard

them breathing. Something like a movement at the edge of his vision made him turn his head, which got

him woozy again, but when his vision cleared he thought he saw, running away towards the street, a man

in a long, dark coat and wide hat, carrying some kind of stick.

A sharp pain in his hand reminded him of his wound, and he fished a handkerchief out of his trousers

with his left hand to wrap around it. Only then he remembered what they'd wanted of him....

"I couldn't lie," he murmured. "I couldn't lie to save my life."

He went on his knees in the grass and vomited. Then he lost consciousness again.

* * *

If I grew a beard, Martell thought, maybe things would be all right. He'd always thought he would

one day, but his came out red, and it contrasted so with his white-blond hair and pale skin that he

knew people would stare. Besides, if you grew a beard people wondered if you were covering a

weak chin. Martell was rather proud of his chin.

He could hear Elaine, teasing him, saying, "You know, people wonder if you're an albino. Or a

half-albino, if there is such a thing. The skin around your eyes is as white as paper." And he had

answered, "My beard grows red."

Flashing red and blue lights. Voices. Muffled, distant. "I ran for a pay phone and called 911 as

soon as I found him."

"Did you move him?"

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"Didn't touch him."

"Well, let's get him on the cart. That collar secure...?"

"Of course we have every confidence in you, Carl," the Dean of Instruction had said to him. "You

can count on a completely objective and open-minded hearing."

Martell would have recognized that speech as the Kiss of Death even if he hadn't sensed she was

lying. He felt the lie as a kind of double vision of the mind, a vertigo. It made his stomach queasy.

The Dean had said, "You know we're on your side, don't you, Carl?"

And Martell had stood there and looked at her, white-faced, unable to make the politic response.

Someone was shining a bright light in his eye. A voice said, "No sign of concussion, but let's run a

couple tests...."

"How long have you been teaching here at Christiania, Carl?" the Dean of Women had asked.

"About eight years."

"And you've been happy here?"

"Yes."

"You came here from the University, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave there?"

He had said, "Because I was afraid of a man," and everyone had looked away or cleared their

throats, embarrassed by the naked candor. A mistake. One he couldn't avoid.

Maybe he should grow a mustache. No. He wasn't the mustache type. Either a full beard or

nothing.

"You've never married, have you, Carl?" the Dean of Men had asked.

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"No."

"And you don't live with anyone?"

"No."

"How often do you date?"

"I never date."

"You have a number of attractive young women in your classes, don't you, Carl?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it true that you had a live-in relationship with one of your students at the University, a

woman considerably younger than yourself?"

"I've talked it over with Sally," Roy Corson of the English Department had said, sitting on a

corner of the desk in Martell's office, plump and bulky in his uniform tweed jacket with elbow

patches, stroking his little beard and looking serious. "She says she'll play along. All you've got to

do is say you spent that evening at our place. We'll say we played Trivial Pursuit or Strip Poker or

something."

"I don't think I can do that," he had answered.

"Come on, Carl — you didn't do the deed, did you?"

"Of course not."

"Don't you see? I might have. Anybody else on the faculty might have — those who could and

those who swing that way. You're the only man I know I'd trust with my virgin sister, if there is

such a thing anymore. That's why we've got to get you off. It's the grossest possible miscarriage —

another show trial for the Sexual Harassment gestapo. Sometimes you've got to give justice a

little nudge."

"I'm sorry, but there are reasons. I just can't."

"OK, have it your way. But Jesus isn't gonna come down on his Harley and pull your butt out of

this."

"I don't believe in Jesus."

"Sure."

Maybe he should grow a half-beard like Roy's. No. Tall, thin men with half-beards look like Don

Quixote.

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"You make enemies, Carl," Elaine had said once, over breakfast. "You think it's your

responsibility to right all the wrong in the world and correct everybody's mistakes, as if

humankind was your History 101 class. People aren't bad just because they're wrong. And they're

not always wrong."

"Carl, is it true that on the 18th of September last, you interrupted a student's report in class by

shouting, 'Lies, lies, lies!' threw a chalk eraser at him, and ran to the Men's Room?"

"Yes."

"Why did you do that?"

"I didn't want to be sick in the classroom."

* * *

"WEEP News, Sid Edelman reporting for Huset Motors. Unless you've been in labor for thirty-six

hours, you've probably heard that Epsom is expecting a celebrity. Sigfod Oski, winner of the

Nobel Prize for Literature, announced on arrival at Twin Cities International Airport this morning

that, instead of making his expected visit to the University of Minnesota, he has decided to come

immediately to Epsom where, he said, he will make his first public statements at a meeting

scheduled for Thursday. President Saemund Lygre of Christiania College told WEEP News:"

"Yes, we have known about Mr. Oski's plans for a couple days now. But he made it very clear

that he didn't want any announcements made before his arrival, and of course we were eager to

cooperate with him in every way."

"We were able to contact a spokesperson for the University, who asked to remain anonymous,

for the administration's reaction. All he was able to say was that they weren't very happy about

it.

"Turning to national news, the Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge by the One Nation

Under God Foundation to the Definition of Religion Act. A spokesman for ONUG described the

new law as 'a frontal assault on the First Amendment,' while a spokesman for the Justice

Department stated that 'We're trying to get the American people to understand that not only is

DRA not a threat to freedom of religion, it's the greatest boon this country has ever seen to true

religious conviction.'

"And now a word from Huset Motors. Tired of the high prices and runaround you get from those

big city dealers? Ted Huset says — "

The Reverend Harold Gunderson of Nidaros Lutheran Church, a heavy, red-faced man with tangled,

thinning hair and a gift for getting the wrong button into any buttonhole, pulled his Oldsmobile into the

parking lot of the Epsom Area Medical Center and flipped the radio off. He was excited by the news

about Sigfod Oski, and slightly disturbed by the entire DRA business (although the bishop had assured

them at the last convention that there was nothing to worry about) but he had work to do. He turned the

key off and opened the door to get out, dragging his prosthetic right leg.

The lighted brick front of the building illuminated graffiti that shouted (all graffiti is a shout),"MICROBE

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MURDERERS — SPESIESISM SUCKS!"and "NO MOR BREEDERS!" But, like everyone else,

Harry hardly noticed graffiti anymore.

He never limped into the cramped, 80's style lobby of the Medical Center without a twinge of

remembrance. He'd left a limb here, and something infinitely more precious.

"It's my cross," he said silently. "Help me to bear it for You. By Your grace we'll make good of this."

He was surprised to find Carl Martell at the front desk, his overcoat over his arm, a gauze bandage on

his forehead, signing out awkwardly with a bandaged hand.

"Six stitches in it," Martell told him when he'd finished his story. "About my head they're not sure yet, but

then what else is new? They'll want me to come back for more tests."

"It's appalling," said the pastor. "You've talked to the police, of course?"

"Sure — they deserve a laugh like anybody else. Whoever attacked me was gone by the time they got

there. 'Did you recognize either of your attackers?' 'No.' 'Were their voices familiar?' 'No.' 'Is it possible

that they were your students?' 'I suppose so.' 'Anything else you remember?' 'Well, there was this

mysterious rescuer with a stick...' They liked that part a lot. Am I an absent-minded professor, Harry? I

didn't think I was bright enough."

"They hear stranger stories every day. Believe me — I hear some of them too."

"That's right, you're like Father Brown. The underworld has no secrets from you."

Harry's face went grave. "Any word from the disciplinary committee?"

Martell gasped. "My God. I forgot all about it. I was on my way to find out when all this happened.

Where's a phone? I've got to call the Dean."

Harry followed him to a pay phone and picked his pocket for him when he couldn't get at his wallet for

his credit card. Martell pushed the buttons slowly, reciting each digit as he did. "You'll have to forgive me

if I'm a little vague, Harry. They gave me some kind of pain-killer and I feel like I've been flogged with

shaving cream."

He reached the Dean at home and made his explanation. Harry could hear a voice from the receiver,

and then Martell said thank you and hung up, his face whiter than usual.

"Well?" Harry asked.

"It's been dropped. Julie withdrew the accusation."

"That's wonderful!"

Martell shook his head, then winced. "It's over. All the fear. All the sleepless nights. Over. Just like that.

And I still don't know why. I don't know why it started, and I don't know why it stopped. I've never felt

so powerless in my life."

"I was sure you'd be vindicated, Carl. And now I think what you need most is a good night's sleep. Go

home and go to bed. Then you'll be fresh and rested for the reception tomorrow."

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"Reception?"

"For Sigfod Oski. I assume you've got a ticket, as a faculty member."

"Of course. I got a pair of them this morning, but I hadn't thought much about them with all that's been

going on. Which just shows you how far out of things I've been — I mean, Oski after all. I've dreamed of

meeting him for years."

"Do you know who you're taking with you?" Harry was fishing, but he often had to, with Carl.

"Taking with me? Oh, the second ticket. No, I hadn't thought about it..." He turned to walk away, then

turned back. "You want to come to the reception?"

Harry beamed. He'd caught his fish. "Why thank you, Carl, how thoughtful. I'd be delighted."

"I'll pick you up at 6:00 then."

"Splendid. Will I see you at church Sunday?"

"When my time comes you'll be the first to know." Martell struggled with his overcoat, and Harry helped

him get it on and watched him drift towards the doors. The pastor watched him go. A fine looking, tall

man, he thought, but strangled inside by some private worm.

He went to the desk and asked for the printout of Lutheran patients. As usual it was a long one, but only

about half of them were his responsibility. The Lutherans of Epsom, in the proud Norwegian-American

tradition, believed there was no such thing as too many, or too small, Lutheran churches. But like the

Good Shepherd Harry Gunderson knew his own. He noted the Nidaros church members.

He called on a new mother, an old woman dying of cancer, a farmer with a broken hip and three

STD's.

On his way out he found Livingston Berge, the church custodian, signing out just where Carl Martell had

been, and having the same trouble.

"How in thunder's a fella supposed to sign out with a bandage like this?" he was demanding of the nurse.

"These kid doctors don't know nothin' about finishing a job!"

"Stoney!" the pastor said. "What happened to you?"

"I was attacked by a vicious beast," said Stoney in the voice of a soul purified by suffering.

"He was bitten by a mouse," said the desk nurse.

Stoney gave her a "he jests at scars" look, which she ignored. He was a round-headed,

stoop-shouldered man in his sixties. He spoke in an immigrant's brogue although he had never been in

Norway in his life — he was the last of a breed.

Harry tried to look concerned.

"You know those new humane mouse traps the government made us buy?" Stoney said. "Well I had a

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