best that you should go, for whatever they have promised you
but now, it is sure that the priests will kill you, even if you escape
the vengeance of the god." And she looked askance at the shattered
statue which had sat in its place for so many generations that none knew
who had set it there, or when.

"I have killed the god," I answered, pointing to the crushed viper.

"Not quite, Olaf, for, see, its tail still moves."

Then she went, leaving me alone. I sat myself down by the murdered
Steinar, and stared at him. Could he be really dead, I wondered, or did
he live on elsewhere? My faith had taught me of a place called Valhalla
where brave men went, but in that faith and its gods I believed no more.
This Valhalla was but a child's tale, invented by a bloody-minded folk
who loved slaughter. Wherever Steinar and the others were, it was not in
Valhalla. Then, perhaps, they slept like the beasts do after these have
been butchered. Perhaps death was the end of all. It might be so, and
yet I did not believe it. There were other gods besides Odin and his
company, for what were those which we had found in the Wanderer's tomb?
I longed to know.

Yes, I would go south, as the Wanderer went, and search for them.
Perhaps there in the South I should learn the secret truth--and other
things.

I grew weary of these thoughts of gods who could not be found, or who,
if found, were but devils. My mind went back to my childhood's days,
when Steinar and I played together on the meads, before any woman had
come to wreck our lives. I remembered how we used to play until we were
weary, and how at nights I would tell him tales that I had learned or
woven, until at length we sank to sleep, our arms about each other's
necks. My heart grew full of sorrow that in the end broke from my eyes
in tears. Yes, I wept over Steinar, my brother Steinar, and kissed his
cold and gory lips.

The evening gathered, the twilight grew, and, one by one, the stars
sprang out in the quiet sky, till the moon appeared and gathered all
their radiance to herself. I heard the sound of a woman's dress, and
looked up, thinking to see Freydisa. But this woman was not Freydisa; it
was Iduna! Yes, Iduna's self!

I rose to my feet and stood still. She also stood still, on the farther
side of the stone of sacrifice whereon that which had been Steinar was
stretched between us. Then came a struggle of silence, in which she won
at last.

"Have you come to save him?" I ask