Chapter 42 – Many Portals To Many Worlds
Odin taught us how to spot the portals and how to distinguish an exit-only portal from an in-and-out portal. We had seen no moving pictures on the time-based God ribbon, which we had followed to this ribbon-between worlds, so I expected to see none here. I saw no pictures as we quickly approached the Asgard portals. I did sense 'strange' as we walked. Although the ribbon was a full eight feet wide, I felt insecure upon it. On all sides was the blackness of space, which we had experienced when our Black Stone sent us on a rapidly traveling ribbon to other worlds. We had been stationary for that, hanging on for dear life. Now we had to walk, and the walking wasn't normal. I felt lighter than normal, little more than half my normal weight. I craved guardrails on either side of the ribbon. I wasn't alone in this feeling. Aagog was lying across my shoulders and I could sense how nervous she was as I negotiated turns in the ribbon, where the whole ribbon tilted on its side. The feeling that one might fall off was severe. I just put one foot in front of the other and forced myself to keep moving.
We identified in-and-out portals inside Yggdrasil, at the pyramid, and at Valhalla. This last portal might prove to be a problem, as it was under the control of Sigrun, or would be if she learned of its existence.
Reading my mind, Odin spoke "Oh she knows, how do you think she rescues the souls of brave warriors from other worlds? Hel somehow had this portal blocked, but I assume it is now fully operative. At least Sigrun has stopped complaining to me about it."
The exit-only portals were next: at Valaskjalf, at the government building, and at the center of a large expanse of green-grass prairie. "There used to be a small city of two-hundred thousand Aesir here. There was an ancient temple at this very spot. It all disappeared millennia ago. If you take over responsibility for Asgard, you must build a new city and Light Guardian temple here. Because of our last adventures, the population is once again rising. I brought my people back from the world where I stashed them, and our numbers are now doubled. I feel much more comfortable with the thought of leaving my world. You or Vili must replace me. Whoever must work cooperatively with the spiders to help the Aesir flourish and respect the spiders and the other worlds of the living."
Okay. I sort of committed myself to assume that responsibility, urging Odin not to depart too swiftly.
I had noticed that each of the portals bore a label in the language of the ancient Aesir. It was close enough to 'old Aesir' that I could sort of read it. Not surprisingly, Hermione did even better at interpreting the labels than I did. She matched Odin's skill. Perhaps he had taught her this tongue, since she read the labels aloud in the ancient language, something I didn't dare to even attempt.
Although it had only been a very short fifteen-minute awkward walk along this ribbon to reach the Asgard portals, we hiked for six hours to reach the next grouping. It was an utterly nerve-racking experience. The dark nothing on all sides of us was oppressive and at least a little scary. Every banked turning of the ribbon had me moving uphill to what seemed like greater safety, if I started slipping toward the down-sloping edge. Slipping seemed a real possibility as it seemed as though I weighed very little. I had tried taking normal steps, but my body bounded up a foot with each step. This was too much for Aagog. She crawled down my back and scrabbled along on her own. I switched to shuffling my feet along, not allowing them to rise more than an inch above the ribbon. I could tell that everyone else was proceeding with extreme caution. My mother's long-ago instruction to little girl me that I must always pick up my feet when I walked, lest I trip, did not apply here. Everyone was shuffling along, and Hermione instructed us to just scuff our feet along the ribbon. I saw a star with planets ahead of us. I could feel my weight increasing a little the closer I came to it, although I was still a small fraction of normal weight.
I could see portals ahead of us. The labels said Vanaheimer. The in-and-out portals were at the White Columns and the Village Vana. We walked right past both portals in search of exit-only portals. There was only one of these and it opened onto a mile-across island, with ocean as far as we could see. It was far too risky to exit, so we didn't. we did set up camp beside this portal, since it at least provided a poor emergency escape - a very poor emergency escape. I saw no sign of inhabitants on the island and no ships on the sea.
It seemed unwise to send ravens over the City, so we limited ourselves to sending half of our ravens out the in-and-out portal to the Village Vana, with Fawkes as top cover, just in case. The portal was above ground - I could see stars; we seemed to be on the outskirts of the village since I saw only three buildings in the medium distance, and only one person; obviously, it was night - that gave the birds a fair chance to get to altitude without being spotted. We had all thought to our birds, as hard as we could: "memorise the location of the portal. Fly away from the village to gain altitude. Observe from altitude. Don't return during daytime." Hermione had stressed the importance of this to all of us, not trusting that the ravens would just somehow know to do the right thing.
With the birds gone, there was nothing for us to do but wait. We would have a day's wait. Depending upon what this flight reported back, we would send out Aagog and the other half of the birds. Poor Fawkes would have to do double duty as protector. The wait gave us time to give the second flight of birds a longer briefing. I especially wanted to pound the "take no risks; don't be seen; do not travel during the day. My message to Aagog was the same, with the added "you can stay one extra day if you hunker down during daytime and if it is absolutely essential to learn what must be learned." I knew how vague that last part was, but I trusted Aagog to use her discretion.
While we waited, Odin continued to explain the intricacies of finding the portals and determining which would permit re-entry to the ribbon. It wasn't as simple as the in-and-out portals came first from this direction. That this was true for both Asgard and Vanaheimer were mere coincidence. He explained the tricky approach to locating and using the in-and-out portals to re-enter the ribbon from normal space. "You can't climb in. You can only Apparate back to the ribbon. You will only succeed in doing that if the ribbon recognises you. You must have travelled on the ribbon or the ribbon must be told by a Black Stone, preferably by Yggdrasil, that you are blessed. What you call side-Apparation sometimes works. I could probably do it with one of your British soldiers. I am not at all convinced that any of you could do that. I've been thinking about Aagog. We certainly don't want her stranded on Vanaheimer. The spiders have great facility on the regular ribbon. I think they must have a way to get back to this ribbon. I just don't know. We should contact Yggdrasil. I think we can do it from here, if we move closer to the portal. We are sitting as far in Vanaheimer's past as we were in Asgard's when we walked back to the time of the Great Fire. That is a problem with the God-ribbons. It is hard to know exactly where or when you are. The birds are a lot better at this sort of thing than we are."
I hoped that the God-ribbon-capable 'the birds' whom Odin referred to included Fawkes. It would have been nice to have had this discussion with Odin before committing Fawkes to the Village Vana. If Fawkes couldn't return, Hermione and I would have to dismount this ribbon to retrieve her. I wasn't going to abandon Fawkes. The same was true of Aagog, although we had a chance to think about that, before Aagog went through the portal.
Odin sensed that I was unhappy and gave me a look which forced me to reply "I'm worried about Fawkes, after what you just said. I feel guilty I didn't think of her sooner."
"Nonsense! You worry too much. A Phoenix is a far more intelligent and magically powerful bird than my ravens. If the ravens can return, I guarantee you Fawkes can return. Let's eat our dinner. That will make you feel much better."
Was I that transparent and that easily diverted? Obviously, I was. Dinner did calm me and cheer my mood. Odin's assurance did convince me that I was needlessly worried about Fawkes. After dinner, we moved closer and closer to the actual portal, until we could contact Yggdrasil. The Yggdrasil we reached was ancient Yggdrasil, the Yggdrasil of just several centuries after the time of the Great Fire. It explained a few things a lot better than Odin had.
It is like when you travelled on the God ribbon to my past. The portal doesn't just dump you into the Village Vana. It puts you on a normal God-ribbon which moves you through time. You exit that ribbon to what you call a travel ribbon. That takes you to a specific time at Village Vana - the portal determines the general place. You can only change your location a little on the local ribbon. Most local ribbons do not join the God-ribbon. Aagog can re-enter the portal. I will instruct her.
While Aagog, and Hermione, finished listening to the instructions - Odin was telling me that he had more to explain and that totally disrupted my concentration - I encouraged the others to move back from the portal. Harry didn't want us to be discovered in this location and neither did I.
Odin commanded everyone's attention: "This is important! I should have told you more about this ribbon, before we travelled. The four main worlds of the Covenant are located close together on this ribbon. After we leave Vanaheimer, Venera will be next. Venera is a heavy world so you won't feel as light near it as you do now. After Venera comes your home world. You will feel lighter there than at Venera. Beyond your world are many others. Every world with a Black Stone has at least one in-and-out portal from this ribbon. Travelling the ribbon to them is much harder and stranger than reaching the four main worlds. The next world after Terra is the one which you call 'Unicorn World'. Since that is the world which currently hosts the dark Gods, I fear that we must travel there and observe the Gods' activities. It will be a strange feeling walk of several days to reach that world. I don't know, but I suspect that the dark Gods may be able to detect our presence on the ribbon in the vicinity of their portal. As far as I know, there is just the single portal to that world. You must choose wisely those who will accompany us to Dark God World.
"Walking the ribbon is safe, I don't think one can fall from the ribbon, but your bodies will be lighter than anything you have encountered so far and everything about that long stretch of ribbon will play with your mind. It is easy to go mad. Only calm, stable persons who are highly adept at magic and can strongly focus their minds are likely to survive the trip with their minds intact. The birds do very well on the journey. I also fear we may be in danger from the dark Gods. If we encounter them, we must turn first to diplomacy. If diplomacy fails... Well, our last recourse will be my own great magic and your triple-bang curse. That is why at least three of Ginny, Hermione, Cho, and Barb must go on to Dark God World. I fear that there is nothing but that curse which will give you any chance of winning a fight with one of the Dark Gods. You've been to Dark God World to visit the Unicorns, so perhaps you've already noticed: The Black Stone on that world is most like the Stone on your world. That is because they were created at the same time, much later than the Stones on the other Covenant worlds. There was a magical circle on Dark God World. I tended it myself. It was tuned to a mix of Unicorn and my own preferences. If the Dark Gods didn't mess with it, it should be well suited to your magical needs. If they've changed it drastically, I think I know how to kill that circle. I've added a few tricks of my own over the millennia."
We ate again. Such is how we passed the time until the next night began beneath us and the birds could return. They didn't bring much good intelligence. We did get a birds-eye view of the temple which housed their circle. We did see a high volume of ordinary Vanir as well as the Village Keepers flowing in and out of the temple, through the same sort of Odin-metal door, which protected Vanaheimer's pyramid. Odin identified the Keepers to us. It's the green and gold tunics. "Only the Keepers may wear that particular combination of colors. They are the high priests of this community. Unlike the Keepers of the Great Black Stone, these Keepers are all male. The birds had not been able to enter the pyramid."
If we wanted greater knowledge, Aagog would have to sneak in while a party of Vanir entered. At least we now could memorise our route from the portal to pyramid entrance.
Was it safe for Aagog to attempt this mission? Apart from my lingering doubt that she might find it difficult to re-enter the portal, I was concerned that her increased size would make it harder for her to sneak into the temple undetected.
"I packed a new invisibility cloak for Aagog," Hermione came to the rescue. "She had outgrown the old one."
The rest of the birds and Aagog headed to Village Vanir, as soon as Aagog was dressed in her cloak. The bottom half of her legs showed, but that might not be a problem. Hermione then pulled four pairs of spider invisibility stockings from her bag. It took an hour to get them onto Aagog's legs. As the team departed, I felt a pang of guilty that it wasn't me, under my own invisibility cape, who was leading the scouting party. Wasn't that the responsibility of the Quest leader?
The second wait was harder than the first. We had nothing of importance left to discuss. Depending upon our dispositions, we read, chit chatted, or unpacked memories from the Light Guardian or the Black Stones. I unpacked memories as I lay upon a blanket on the ribbon. As I half dozed, after examining the memories of another ancient priestess, I decided that I might find it easier to ride my broom along the ribbon, rather than walking. I mentioned this to Odin. He cautioned that our survival might depend upon hoarding our stored magical energy. Even at this distance, we could slowly recharge through our contact with the circle in the pyramid of The Great Black Stone. Much farther away, and we would spend ten hours farther away in our travel to Venera, there would be no re-charging. Walking did not expend magical energy the way traveling by broom did. I reconciled myself to another unnerving walk. As promised, I contacted both Harry and Percy, letting them both know the little we had learned from our first flight of birds and describing the walk to Vanaheimer. I wanted to know what was happening to them, but I was once again dealing with the God-ribbon time mismatch and could only leave a message with Yggdrasil for future delivery.
Aagog was very excited, whe she and the ravens rejoined us. Aagog was able to make it inside the temple. The big news was that the circle controlled by the Village Keepers had somehow managed to acquire a purple diamond. It had charging circles. The temple had so much traffic, because a constant stream of Vanir cycled through four charging ovals. There wasn't a Black Stone inside the temple, but there was a White Column. Was that supposed to even be possible - four White Columns on the same world? My intuition told me that somehow this White Column allowed entry to seid-space. Village Vana was a place of power.
I wanted to get all our forces well away from the Vanaheimer portals. We could garrison the ribbon far closer to Earth and still fully protect against Vanir spies and invaders. Before we all moved out, I paused to alert Harry and Percy to this rather disturbing new information from Aagog. On the plus side, Aagog was able to explore most of the temple and relayed over three-quarters of the floor plan to us. There was a lower level, accessed only by the Keepers, which Aagog could not enter.
