Chapter 19. 'V' is for Valkyrie

  Ithaniel nodded in surprise. "It's been a while."

  "It has." Eurides said. "Walk with me."

  He stepped over Winston and the world changed beneath his feet.

  "You should of stayed out of my way." Eurides said.

  They stood quietly side by side on the crest of a desert dune.

  It was a dark clear night. "This world can still be ours." Ithaniel said.

  "That's your dream not mine."

  "I was hoping you might of reconsidered."

  A single point of light appeared in the sky above and grew brighter than

  everything that surrounded it. It described an incandescent arc that pulsed

  as it passed overhead. The desert sand glittered as night became day.

  "And just for a few moments," Eurides said. "I shone like the Sun."

  The dunes rolled like ocean swell as shock waves travelled down from above.

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  The desert floor shook with the force of a distant impact.

  "Why are you showing me this? Do you think I've forgotten our fall."

  "What I haven't forgotten, is your part in it." Eurides said.

  Ithaniel smiled. "I wanted it to happen, that's true enough, but you can't blame

  me for the time displacement that occurred. That was pure phenomena."

  "What it was," Eurides said. " was a harsh lesson in perspective. Similar to the

  one you're about to experience."

  The smile left Ithaniel's face. He saw the thin silver chain wrapped around

  his wrist. "What's this?"

  "It's a cluster of magnetic fields that I curved in on themselves and held open."

  Attached to the chain was a pendant with the letter 'V' inscribed on it.

  "When you took the gun from Winston's hand, you closed the fields over

  yourself - you're part of them now, the fields are complete "

  "Don't do this Eurides."

  "'V' is for the Valkyrie Ithaniel. You remember the ship don't you?"

  Ithaniel began to burn like the inside of a furnace.

  "In Norse mythology, the Valkyrie choose who are to be the slain

  on the battlefield. It's quite poetic don't you think."

  Ithaniel burned brighter still, becoming a blinding mass of plasma energy.

  "The next time we meet Eurides, I'm going to destroy you."

  Eurides smiled. "If there is a next time."

  *

  Eurides stood beside Winston. "It's time to move on my friend."

  Winston came to coughing and spitting dirt.

  The chain and pendant he wore fell un-noticed from his hand.

  His body ached from the over pressure of the explosion.

  After checking Robbie and Arthur's bodies for signs of life,

  Winston crawled over to where Toby lay. Toby was gone too.

  "Fuck me." Winston sat back and shook his head.

  He was thinking through his options, when he heard a call for

  help. Winston looked across the battlefield and listened.

  When he heard it again, he tightened the straps on his medical kit

  and set off in the direction he thought the call had come from.

  In a boot print Winston left behind, there was a glint of silver.

  " And that," Eurides said," is where you are going to stay Ithaniel,

  lost and forgotten."

  *