Dream of Me/Believe in Me

death filled the hall. Men perished in vast numbers, homes and hearths vanished as though they had never been. The sky caught fire and split in two. Evil was unleashed and walked the earth.
Ragnarök
descended, the twilight of the gods.
    One by one, Odin and his brothers gave battle and one by one they died. The sky turned black and the stars were extinguished. The world was utterly destroyed.
    The skald's voice fell away. Cymbra waited for the storyteller to resume, sure he would say something more, offer some hope, but he had nothing to add, nor did anyone else seem to expect it. Slowly, the silence of the hall was punctuated by a deep, rhythmic banging.
    Still caught in the hideous visions of the tale, Cymbra looked around dazedly as first one, then another of the warriors brought his drinking horn down hard, thumping the scarred tables again and again in full-hearted approval of the despair-ridden tale.
    The skald smiled, bowed, took his seat. More ale was poured. Conversation resumed.
    “What was that?” Cymbra murmured. She spoke so faintly that for a moment she thought no one had heard. But then Wolf turned to her quizzically.
    “That is
Völuspá
, the Seeress's Prophecy, our greatest epic. It explains the origins of the world and foretells its end. You have never heard it before?”
    She shook her head. “The world just ends like that, with the triumph of evil? There is no hope?”
    He shrugged as though the notion surprised him. “Some say the world will be reborn and the cycle begun again but with the same end. Always there will be the battle between good and evil, and evil will win as death always wins, but the gods and man will always rise to try again.”
    “It doesn't seem … futile to go on like that, over and over, with no chance for anything better?”
    The moment she spoke, Cymbra regretted her words. She understood that her husband's faith was different from her own, and she did not wish to appear disrespectful. But what she had just heard appalled her almost as much as his ready acceptance of it.
    “I forget how soft you Christians are,” he said matter-of-factly. “You have a child's need for a happy ending.”
    Stung, Cymbra forgot about tempering her response. “Or you might say that we simply have more faith in our Creator.”
    He shrugged. “Yet your own tales tell of a great battle between good and evil at the end of the world, don't they?”
    “But evil doesn't win! The Savior comes again in triumph and the world is reborn as the Kingdom of God.”
    Wolf looked unimpressed. “It's a nice idea,” he allowed. “Brother Joseph speaks of this ‘Prince of Peace.’ I have trouble respecting a man who goes like a lamb to his own slaughter.”
    “He wasn't just a man, he was—and is—the Son of God. And he didn't die, he was reborn as all of us shall be reborn through God's love.”
    “All well and good, but I haven't noticed that Christians are any more peaceful than anyone else—on the contrary. At least we Norse live by the teachings ofour faith. We don't pretend to be better than we really are.”
    “And at least we Christians aspire to something better,” Cymbra snapped. “We don't just accept an endless cycle of violence and death.”
    Fire-lit shadows danced against the shield-emblazoned walls. A servant poured golden ale into Wolf's drinking horn. He raised it, took a long swallow, and eyed her narrowly. “I warned you this is a hard land and we a hard people. You will do well to remember that.”
    When he said nothing more, but turned from her to speak to Dragon, Cymbra remained seated stiffly in her chair.
    Time passed. Wolf did not speak to her again. At length, she rose and left the hall. Outside in the cool night air, she paused. The smoke had burned her eyes. That was the only reason there were tears in them.
    She went through the darkness to the lodge, where kindly Brita had lit the lamps, left water still warm to the touch, and turned down the covers of the great bed. Cymbra slipped beneath them certain she would not sleep. Visions of a bloodred sky splitting open to pour forth demons were bound to keep anyone awake. But she hadn't counted on the exhaustion of the long day.
    She woke, some unknown time later, to the touch of callused hands stroking the satiny skin of her inner thighs. Heat ignited instantly within her. She moaned and reached out to her husband. In the darkness of the night she could see very little, but she was vividly aware of him