I was gasping in great gulps of frigid air that scoured my lungs like a steel pad. The coppery taste of dried blood in my mouth was good news, it meant I was no longer bleeding, however, the broken ribs were not. I took a few shallow, excruciating breaths. I was being dragged over the precipice by the cold. Eventually it would kill me, but oddly enough I was grateful for the numbing effects. My eyes felt glued shut and I tried to rub them open. I wanted to die with my eyes open. Apparently Odin was just a dream. The gods should have no fear of dying; they’re already dead.

It was snowing, and what was left of my body was covered in it. I liked snow at night. No matter how dark it was the snow seemed to gather in all the invisible light and magnify it in a fantastical landscape of awe. I opened my cracked lips and let the flakes fall on my tongue and melt. It was nice.

Then I was moving, being gently lifted. I tried to say something, but all I could manage was a pitiful groan. I was being placed on something, something dry, with padding, then I was moving again, sliding over the snow, floating on clouds and they absorbed me.

It must have been days, because when I woke, I was clean, bandaged and surprisingly, not in agony, in fact, I was rather comfortable. The cloud of a bed I was in was beyond understanding, and the smells...I had subjected myself to the decomposing filth of the street for so long that my senses had been deadened, now they came alive. It was as though a chorus of birds had wakened in my diseased brain and were performing an aria. I slowly looked around the room.

Images started to coalesce, colours separating from the blurred fuzz which becoming sharper, more distinct. There was a black blob off to the right side at the foot of the bed. At first I thought it was one of Odin’s ravens and I mused which one it might be, thought or memory.

“Thought, the one of the two that in my case is the least lethal,” croaked a rasping voice.

The figure sharpened revealing an old man, hunched over in a wheelchair. He looked like without the support of the chair he would simply collapse into a pile of dark clothes. He craned his bald, turtle like head at me and rolled a bit closer to examine me.

“Memories, my memories are only objects of regret.” He patted my arm. “Nearly lost you, would have been a shame.”

“Where am I?” Cracked with effort. “This isn’t a hospital. None that I know of.”

“No, no hospital. No staphylococcus, no candida albicans, no collsidium deficcil. You just may recover here. At a real hospital might as well tag your toe and roll you into the mortuary.”

The old man gave a startled pause then burst out in a peal of laughter. “You don’t have any toes. That’s a good one.”

“Who are you?”

“So full of questions. I am one of the richest men you will ever meet.” A pale, thin hand introduced himself with a sweep in front of his chest. “But this is the best money can buy. You are most likely curious as to why you are here?”

“Yes, I was thinking…”

“Hah, I will call you Huginn, Thought...something my wayward niece showed little of tonight.”

“The girl in the park…” It was dawning on me, exactly why I was here. I was being rewarded.

He leaned forward, bleary eyes staring into my own. “That is exactly why you are here. I want to say thank you. Something I do not get a chance to say often.”

A long, lethal looking woman flowed into the room, because it was impossible for someone like her to walk. I knew the walk, the awareness of her body, the harmony of movement. She knew exactly where the old man was, how close I was to him, how long it would take to dispatch me, if she had to. Her hair was black, her features asiatic and I laughed. She placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. They both regarded me with a questioning gaze, part curious, part bewildered.

“What’s so funny?” rasped the old man.

“Nothing,” I tried to control my voice because the laughter hurt. “It’s just. There was a game I liked to play when I was young. On the cover was a man sitting in a chair, and behind him, hand on shoulder, just like you two, was an asian beauty. I just find stereotypes amusing.”

“You do? Well?” The old man was suddenly harsh and demanding. “Why?”

I raised a hand. It was my way of offering a sign. “I mean no disrespect. It’s just, I loved that picture.”

“I know the game: Master Mind Were you any good?”

“Not at all, my sister used to beat me all the time. It was something with the colours. I would see the colours and forget what I was doing.”

“Which order?” The old man demanded rolling a bit closer.

I could almost taste his interest, it was spiky and sharp.

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“Yellow, blue, red, green, then black. White was last, always last.”

The old man gave a nod, as though I had said something that had just confirmed his perception of me. Although the conversation had been light, full of banter, I knew that what was going to happen to me was being balanced in the scale. I felt a wave of exhaustion well up inside me and my eyes drooped. Morphine, most likely. Out of the cloud of sleep rolled a thought.

“Why is that? Why is white always last?”

In the blur, just before I lost consciousness. I saw the woman’s face moving close to mine. Her hands were long, but there was strength there, a thickness that only comes from training. “White is last,” she whispered, “because it is the most important.”

How long I drifted, I don’t know. Sleep was supposed to be the deep oblivion which regenerates, but this was not my case. I was a submerged boat on a sea of narcotics, impossible to tell which direction I was. I fully expected Odin, or some god to appear, but not did. Just an endless void of dark clouds that shifted from one nightmarish creature to another, all attempting to devour me. Only when I finally woke up did I realize I had traded one nightmare for that of another.

“There we go, Mr. Huginn,” said the young woman who had been with the old man. Her black, glossy hair fell like a curtain and brushed against my face as she pulled me upwards and stuffed pillows behind my back to support me. “We’ve kept you under long enough. More than what’s good. It was the Master’s will.”

Even though I was still fogged by the narcotics, I was surprisingly aware, and did not feel much pain. I felt a strange sensation of regret when she pulled away from me. It had been a very long time since someone had touched me in a caring fashion. I squirmed a bit and she looked at me suspiciously.

“You are uncomfortable?” she asked.

“Just some underclothing is bunched up. It’s a bit uncomfortable.” There was something under my butt that was forming an uncomfortable ridge and no matter how much I squirmed, I couldn’t free myself from it.

There was a moment of hesitance on her face.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The explosion took my…”

“I understand,” she said slipping her hand under the blankets and surgically straightening the cloth.

I gave a great sigh of relief. The irritation vanished.

“How long ago was it?” she asked. While emotion refused to touch her face, there was a slight inflection in her voice.

“I don’t know. Time is just a space between birth and death isn’t it. Units of measurement don’t really matter, do they?”

She tilted her head and looked at me obliquely, the way a bird would. “No, it doesn’t matter.” She moved to leave.

“Wait.”

She stopped and turned.

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

“My name. My name is Muninn. I am the other raven. Get well.”

And she was gone.

Convalescence proceeded as convalescence does, painfully slow, but the pain grounded me, tied me to the earth, to the new environment I found myself in. Black feather thoughts kept buzzing through my head and in the centre of the hurricane was the old man in the wheelchair laughing at my discomfort like some buzzard, except this time, the old man had an eye patch.

Muninn brought in the wheelchair and parked it expectantly beside the bed. I glared at it with a jaundiced eye.

“Where’s my scooter?” It was what I called my modified longboard.

She returned my pretend indignation with a cold, blank stare. “I burned it.”

“You burned it? You burned it? You went through my stuff and burned it?”

She went to pull back my covers, but I pulled them up around my chest protectively. “The Master wants you out of bed. It’s time you made use of yourself.”

She tried to pull the blanket away and I slapped her hand. Undeterred she moved quickly altering her hands, I countered them and in a flurry we fought. No punches were thrown, just the quick hand movements and countering slides. While she was faster, I was stronger and we would have continued our match for a while had she not grabbed the blankets and trust me up like some netted cod.

“The chair, Huggin.”

“Stop calling me that. I do have a name...fine, I’ll get into the blasted chair. Just put my clothes up on the bed and I’ll get dressed.”

She put the neatly folded uniform, the one I had been ignoring, onto the bed. I reached down and grabbed the shirt. I caught the glimmer of a silver brooch on the black cloth. It was the letter H. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I mumbled. She was wearing a black outfit with a silver M on her chest. She glared at me unyieldingly. “Fine. I’ll dress up in Odin’s uniform, but I’m not going to like it. Well?”

She continued to stare at me. “Could you turn around and let a man get dressed in private.”

Munnin gave me a curious look as if to say I had no reason for modesty, and maybe she was right. I had no reason to be private about anything let alone my parts. That had gone a long time ago, on both instances. She turned about and I dressed. The shirt was the main thing, while the bottoms were nothing more than pinned up shorts. Then I glared at the wheel chair. How was I supposed to get into the blasted thing?

She must have heard my thoughts because she came to me and offered a surpriingly strong arm to give me support while I swung my torso out of bed and into the chair. Once settled, I begrudgingly felt comfortable. “So, where too ‘M’, you mind if I call you ‘M’?” She went to push me and I snapped at her. “Hands off! My chair, my hands.” I reached down and grabbed the wheels and gave them a vigorous push. I was surprised when the exceedingly responsive chair nearly put me into the wall. The thing must have cost a mint.

“The Master would like to see us, now. Follow me.” Her voice was cold, neutral giving away no sign of witnessing my emotional outburst.

There was something alluring about ‘M’, the way she moved as she walked. It was smooth and subtle, but full of feminine lethal energy. Having no manhood was one thing, having the memories was another. I was still a man, but no way to realize it. So far I had avoided temptation, but my mind was being sorely tempted. ‘M’ turned a corner and for a moment disappeared from sight. I momentarily had the thought of turning the chair about and rolling for it, but where? Where would I go? The simple answer was nowhere. I had nowhere to go. She was standing at a large frosted glass door, waiting for me. There was a strange smell, a humid, earthen smell steppid in the feel of the tropics. What was that smell doing here. I placed my hand against the door. It was warm. As though responding to my touch, the door slid open revealing nature.