Awakening

It is said that advanced science is indistinguishable from magic; what is perhaps not said is that advanced magic might therefore be studied via science. This theoretical basis wasn’t really on the mind of Brent Davidson that night as he and his lab buddies celebrated their creation of a new AI language analysis program. Awash in the heady glow of success and inebriation, Brent had the idea to run down to the university library, grab an old book or two, and turn the AI loose on them because, in his words, it’d be so frickin’ cool if the thing translated something and manifested, like, the Ark, man. So cool.”

Strictly speaking the library was closed that night, just as the book they eventually got their hands on was written in Old Norse, not Aramaic or Hebrew or anything remotely connected to the lost Ark, but these were minor details in retrospect. What happened when the AI scanned the book and translated the ancient runes was more important. The book suddenly exploded in a blinding blue flash of light, and when Brent and his terrified friends could see again, they found themselves staring at a tall woman clad in armor and holding, of all things, a shovel. Even more surprising, the shovel was glowing.

She cast one swift look around, at the lab room, the terrified scientists, the red Solo cups and the smell of alcoholic beverages, and sniffed. Then she leveled the glowing shovel at Brent. “Where is Alviss?”

“Who?” Brent stammered.

“Do not lie,” she said. “I have searched for him longer than you know. I searched through all the known realms, and when I could not find him I knew he was lost, so I asked a sorcerer to cast an enchantment on me so that I would not wake until he did, such was my desire to see him again. I have awakened, and so he must have as well, so I ask again: where is he?”

The shovel crackled with white bolts like lightning in her hand. “I don’t know!” Brent said, shaking in fear. “I don’t even know who you are, okay? I really don’t, we- we were just having fun, we-”

“I am Thrud,” she said, “Daughter of Thor and Sif, sister of Magni and Modi. I wield Mlrning, the Shovel of my father, with which he-”

As terrified as he was, Brent couldn’t help himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but, the Shovel of Thor?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice a deadly calm. “With which he scrapes the ice off the Bifrost when it grows cold. But I will exchange words with you no longer; it is clear that you do not know where he is, therefore I will go and seek him.”

With that, she turned on her heel and stalked out. As the door slammed behind her, she thought she heard laughter, but Thrud dismissed it from her mind; she wasn’t interested in the men of Earth anyway. Besides, she knew what she had to do now.

She made her way outside the building, ignoring the strange vehicles and astonished stares of the people. What did she care how surprisingly advanced men seemed to have become, how swiftly they moved upon the ground, or even in the air? (Admittedly, that surprised her; she would have to speak to her father about that). What did she care for their unusual costumes, or the shouts of their officers, or the strange weapons they aimed at her? All their weapons and apparel had always been strange to her. It was her father that was known as warder of Earth, not her.

Then one of the weapons made a loud crack, and something whizzed past her, and Thrud grew angry. “I have no quarrel with you!” she shouted back. “But if you are keeping my Alviss from me-”

She got some strange looks at that. One of the officers raised his hand. “Ma’am, I don’t know who you are, but you do know Elvis has been dead for something like fifty years, right?”

Thrud froze. The shovel of Thor fell from her hand. “Alviss,” she corrected automatically. “That was his name.” Even as she said it she wondered whether it mattered. She had come back, and he was gone. What was she to do now? Should she go home? Could she? She didn’t even know how long it had been.

She raised the shovel and it glowed expectantly. “Mlrning,” she said, and her voice almost cracked, “Take me home. Take me to Asgard.”

Slowly Mlrning rose, Thrud clinging to its handle, and then disappeared in a flash into the cold blue sky.

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Note: for background material, I refer you to the Ballad of Alvis; I don’t know much about Norse mythology, but I’ve been fascinated for some time by what I’ve read about Thrud and Alviss, and I thought I’d try my hand at it. The element of Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!) is an invention entirely of my own.