=========================== CHAPTER VI =============================











I woke up on the fluffy bed. Around me the golden wall were adorned with pictures and scultures of the utmost elegance. It was like waking in the suites of a major hotel-casino in the rooms made specifically for a celebrity high-roller.

I had just been nearly whole in the Real World. Now I was back in the beautiful surroundings of Fensalir. I let out a groan. My parents had seen me. The cops had seen me. I had just created a wide confusion in Real World. Not to worry. I was in Everworld. Things were worse here.

I sat up, pushing the heavy wool blankets off my body. Time to diverge a plan. Go with the phalanx of the Romans? Old Nordic charge from the ships? Modern sneak and attack. That's what the Sennites used. Time to choose. Modern armed forces was standard and ultimately pretty good, but it did have its flaws. When matched by quanity, the quality of it won, but with casulties. Casulties. Exactly what we didn't need. Maybe a rank-form. Very Colonial-European. Not exactly the best when facing people with hand grenades and A.R.R. Assault Rifles. Break off the ranks. Take groups of lines and charge in different areas. Mix all three. Phalanx, sneak attack, rank-forming. Guard your most valuble and most vurnerable, archers, sharpshooters, snipers, Send a group of each guarded heavily with front liners. Make the groups small. Small bands of fighters. Small bands of key players mixed with what we needed most. Maybe trenches would help. Trenches, lined with more than barbed wire and dark-traps. We needed things lined with magic. Or at least the closest thing to it. The streams of fire Freya had shot into the air. Line the ground with that. Use any guns the dwarves could cook up with the Coo-Hatch steel. If we could get ahold of one of those ammo lockers we would be better off. I didn't know how to make bullets correctly. Otherwise we would be using something like the Everworld equivalent of the Brown Bess.

This would be our ideal plan. Use small backnds of warriors, and maybe trenches to fight the Sennites. Four of Frigg's handmaids came through the wooden door, embroidered with drawings and designs.

They were all basically the same thing. Long straw-yellow hair in elegant braids. Each wearing a frilly brown gown. They looked like what Christoper called "Heidi's". I assume meaning the sterotype of German or Swedish women. They each carried a different tray, carrying a different object. One an assortment of hair care objects, another a large golden bowl filled with shimmering blue water, another a large pitcher of amber fluid and many tall silver chalices, each carved with a small hammer, a half closed eye, and an ash tree covered in runes.

"Lord Jalil," the one in the lead said lazily with half closed eyes. "We come to treat you." Treat me? This sounded a bit off. The Greeks meaning of 'treat' was to send a few women into your room to use their mouths in the most improper ways. I had to insist not to be 'treated' at least twelve times in Olympus. I hoped the Norse didn't hold sexual intentions as their main source of entertainment.

One of the 'Heidi's' pulled me up and pulled my tattered dwarf shirt from my back. My hopes were crushed. I tried saying no and pushing them back, but they merely laughed and continued. Eventually I was naked. Stanidng there before four tall attractive blondes. This wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I didn't have more pressing issues on my mind. The lead one gave me an appraising look. She clapped loudly and suddenly I was being clothed. Long leggings were being scraped over my raw legs. A long black shirt was pulled over my head. A leather vest laced with animal skins was pulled over that. Hardened leather pantaloons were pulled over my leggings. Chain-mail was added over my vest and knee guards over my pantaloons. This happened very swiftly, maybe two minutes at most.

The one in the lead placed a large cape around my back and a gave me a brisk kiss on the cheek. "Odin the Father of Ygg is ready to see you Lord Jalil," she said quietly. Two grabbed an arm of him, while the other two held my cape up off the ground.

I was led out to the magnificent hall of Fensalir. It was a wide and tall room, like a mix between a cathedral and a Plaza Hotel. In the very center stood a staircase leading into clouds. Around stood balconies, with doors leading into different suites. Four tall pillars stood before me, on top was a platform. Frigg sat there, weaving tools in hand. Turning what seemed like wool into what looked like clouds which drifted through an opening in the ceiling.

We walked down the staircase, onto solid cloud. It turned out that the whole of Fensalir sat on pillars of cloud. The entire of Asgard was made of assortments of structures supported on clouds. Behind us the huge wall loomed in the distance. A few chalk-white branches of Yggdrasil the size of a sequoia hung in the distance. Every few seconds a horse cantered along the branches, munching on leaves. Or a squirrel the size of a Doberman Pincher would run up and down and prance across the clouds with a giant mellon in its grasp.

I imagined that these clouds were actually resting on mountains, or were mountains themselves. Or maybe that they were just covering up some unknown material that had to be cloaked. I probably should have just excepted the fact that I was walking on a cloud. When we reached a large misty well we were joined by Freya, Fulla and Skadi. Freya looked the same as before. A large white feather coat and a beautiful necklace. Why was it that these things that stood out most?

Skadi looked different than before. She was just as tall. Six feet at least. The day before she wore a long blue gown with chain-mail. Today she looked more like Athena. She wore a helm with two horns protruding from the front. She still wore a long gown, but it was barely visible beneath her many layers of fur, leather, and scale-mail.

Fulla was dressed different, but she was just as beautiful. Long golden hair, and what looked like a perfect body. She was probably the Norse installment of Aphrodite.

We were soon greeted by Tyr and Christopher. Christopher was wearing something alot like me, except no long cape around his back. I wondered if they excepted him more than me. They must have notced I was black. Christopher, on the other hand, would have fit in very well. He was tall and had blonde hair. He almost looked normal in the battle attire.

Christopher came over to me and started talking in a low voice. "I got gypped, man. They came in to my room, claiming to do whatever I pleasure, but I didn't have the need to what pleasures me most. Everworld has cheated me!" I looked him up and down. I knew he was this materialistic. I was going to say something, but my words were interupted by a loud clatter of a chariot.

A large crystal chariot drawn by what looked like three cats approached. They were all black except for the one in the front who was white.

"Skoal, Lady Freya of the Battle," said the white cat. The other two didn't say anything. This mad me angry. Not that they remainded quiet, but that one talked. The doors swung open automatically. One of the cats clawed the ground and through back his head with a loud whinny.

"Did that horse just neigh?" said Christopher as he climbed into the chariot.



We arrived in the courtyard of an enourmous palace made of grantie anf gold. A man dressed in lush furs waited for us and opened the doors of the chariot.

"I present the palce of Valaskjalf! Home of Glourios Odin's high seat Hlidskialf! Chamber of the Earth and the Pool of All Sight!" His voice was rich like the announcers for royalty. In an instance we were no longer in the same place. Mist and cloud swirled around my body and over my eyes. Next thing I knew I stood in the great room of Odin's castle.

In front of us was a huge throne, the size of the one Lincoln sat on in the Lincoln Memorial. Odin sat there. He was dressed in furs and field- plate, wearing a brimmed leather cap draped over his eyes so you could not see one empty socket. At one side he carried a long silver spear and the other a wooden longbow. He looked very wise and knowing, but also reminded me of the gangsters characters in the book "A Clockwork Orange."

On either side of him sat a wolf. Both blood red, each with and extra eyesocket on their forhead. On Odin's shoulders perched two ravens wit their wings stretched wide.

"Welcome, my friends and family, to Hildskiaf. I beg all who are not gods to not look behind you. One look at the Pool of All Sight and you too will end up with my disabillities. Now straight to our buisness. I do not mean to be too brief, but I have no choice. Lord Jalil, I understand that you have a plan. I wish to hear it." I took a deep breath. If he didn't like it I was dead. Literally.

"Okay," I said meekly. Present your case. Defend your case. Don't let the judge or lawyer intimidate you. "What I plan to do is gather together our forces and fight the enemies strategy by using ther same strategy, but defeating them in their flaws." I glanced at Christopher. He looked calm. Bored even. I suppose he just expected me to come up with some brilliant plan to save our asses.

"And what is their stategy?" said Odin loudly.

"Well it's a modern thing. Modern for us I mean. They usually break up into groups and kill whatever moves. But they do it stealthily. They are usually very quick."

"And their flaws?" Freya, who was at my side, said this. I turned to her.

"Well...er...you see they like to think they are safe with their quality. If we set up enough boundary with our forces. Than we push men in at certain strategic locations. Er...checkpoints. We set our best men in the center of a guard. These men would be our snipers -"

"Sniper?" Tyr interupted. He looked very intigued.

Christopher interjected. "Yeah, sharp shooters. Really good bowmen." I could have explained that.

"Grungir could serve for these 'snipers'," said Odin, holding up his bow. He was stroking his beard with the other hand.

"Yes, well we don't only need bows. We can't fight their machine guns with bows," I said. Odin held up his hand.

"And why not?" he boomed. He must have thought I was offending his archers.

"Well because." Oh great explination, Jalil. "Because their guns can easily cut holes through in your men and your ships. We need to make guns. I was thinking we could use trenches."

"Where men put their waste. HA!" Skadi was speaking now. "I do not let my body lie in filth. Th daughter of Thiazi does not sit in the waste furrows!" They were almots as arrogant as the Greeks.

"No. We build them ourselves. Or we could get the dwarves to build them. We make trenches and then guard them with sharp fencing..."

"Ah, like the stronghold pits in Camelot!" called Tyr.

"Er, yeah, kind of. Except we build them in the battlefields. They are like traps almost. We stay low in the trenches so they can't see us, then we fire arrows or bullets or bolts or whatever at them. If they get too close we charge."

"But what of our assets sitting low with their guards. Shall they be in the channel also?" asked Odin. I felt out numbered. Christopher now looked worried. No longer so smug. It's what he deserves, leaving it all to me.

"Well, no." I didn't know what to say. I hadn't looked to far into this. Maybe camoflauge.

"Fox holes," whispered Christopher. Yes! We would put all our most valuble people in trenches with gattling guns or something. The others would sit in the trenches ready to charge. Trenches were harder to esimate. Small or large, there or not. No untrained man could hit one with a grenade or even kill a man unless he stood up.

Odin was looking at me with a look of impatience. "Well? What do we do with them?" he yelled.

"Fox holes," I said. He looked utterly confused. "Um...small holes...like the trenches, but smaller and round. Like small craters. They're harder to see." Odin looked pleased. They were buying this. We have to find the Sennites first and estimate their movement. Then we have to make the traps, hopefully with magic.

"I like that idea. The idea of using magic," said Odin. Oh crap! I yelled in my head. Odin could read minds. He had just heard the whole buying this. Oh well new age slang. He won't understand.

Stop thinking Jalil! Don't think. Okay, answer the man...god!

"Yes well you know it right?" Christopher said. About time he took part in the conversation.

"Freya, of the Battle knows the art of seidr better than I, or any other in my kingdom. All arrangements of the sacred arts will be accessed through her. If this concludes your plans, they I must say we are well met by you. Such plans hav never been set in my lands. Do what you must. Gather whom you must. I see that you shall soon be with the dwarves again. I beg you take some delegates of my kingdom. They will help in any way possible." I couldn't disagree. I nodded my head. "Skadi, daughter of Thiazi, and Tyr of One Hand. Fetch me two who will help you on your journeys. Each from his own. I wish you accompany me to Valhalla. We shall have a feast in the honor of our new comrades. Come!"

The swirling mist enveloped me again. Why couldn't we have just walked. Probably something about the Pool of Sight. That was wear Odin looked over the world. I guess we were moving, but I couldn't feel it. In fact I was sure we were moving. My feet no longer touched floor.