Erik the Viking Page #16

AUD:

Then I shall come too.

ERIK:

(stares at her)

No... no..

AUD:

I don'T want to live WITHOUT you.

ERIK:

But, Aud... I... I came to find someone...

Aud is about to say "Her?", but she bites the word back and looks down at the ground.

ERIK:

I'm sorry, Aud... I really am.

Aud kisses Erik, who then turns and climbs out of GOLDEN DRAGON and sets off across the ice. Sven follows.

SVEN'S DAD

Wait for me! I'll be dead soon anyway...

KEITEL:

You can't go without me!

They follow. Even Harald Missionary starts to follow.

HARALD:

Where are they all going?

AUD:

Aren't you afraid?

HARALD:

Oh... There's nothing for ME to be afraid OF.

Harald smiles and sets off after the others. Aud follows. The stars have fallen to form a shining, winding pathway up to the City of the Gods. This is what the Vikings head for. Between them and the Citadel strange huge forms rise up. The Vikings approach and find the vast skeletons of the slain giants. The Vikings are but tiny gnat-sized figures wending their way between the vast figures. They climb the stairway-path of stars, up the winding road and eventually fins themselves outside the massive doors of Asgaard.

ERIK:

Valhalla...

Sven turns on Harald.

SVEN:

There! It's real! It's solid! Now do you believe us?

He pats the wall of Valhalla - the Great Hall. Harald reaches out, but his hand goes right through the wall.

HARALD:

There isn't anything.

Harald Missionary walks straight through the wall and disappears from sight. The Vikings gasp, and run up to feel the point where he disappeared. The door is perfectly solid to them, and they jump pout of their skins as Harald suddenly reappears again.

HARALD:

You're having me on, aren't you?

ERIK:

It's Valhalla - where the warriors slain in battle go.

AUD:

It doesn't exist for him.

SVEN'S DAD

He's just s cynic.

At this moment there is a creak and the great doors mysteriously swing open. As if mesmerized, the Vikings enter the Halls of Asgaard. The door slams behind them. They spin round, but the doors have vanished... No man has ever entered the Halls of Asgaard and left alive... Erik slowly starts to cross the vast floor looking around him as he does so. One by one the other Vikings follow. After a while Erik stops.

ERIK:

Listen!

The Vikings listen. They hear the sound of children laughing and shouting. Erik and his men follow through the columns towards a pool of light. The scene that greets their eyes is not at all what they had been prepared for. Valhalla is not full of the warriors slain in battle, quaffing mead on the ale-bench and reliving old battles - it is, instead full of children romping, laughing, shouting, quarrelling and playing games... chess, fencing... dice... tag, etc., around a wide hearth fire. Women are cooking and doing other housewifely things... weaving, making bread, etc. It is a thoroughly domestic scene. Suddenly one of them turns at Erik. It is Helga, whom Erik accidentally killed in Scene One. She is once again kneading dough. She has a red stain under her breast.

HELGA:

Oh good! It's Mr Wonderful!

Erik leaps to her side.

ERIK:

I've come to take you back to the land of the living.

HELGA:

What a stupid idea.

ERIK:

(mortally hurt)

Why?

HELGA:

What's the point of being dead in the land of the living?

ERIK:

I'll ask the Gods to give you life again!

Helga looks at Erik very sceptically. She obviously thinks he doesn't know what he's talking about. Aud reacts. Erik takes Helga's hand - and gets covered in dough.

HELGA:

Have you tried to ask the God for anything?

ERIK:

Well... no...

HARALD MISSIONARY

Who is he talking to?

AUD:

Sh!

HELGA:

Odin!

One of the children, throwing pennies against the wall, looks round.

CHILD ODIN:

I'm busy.

The Vikings are recovering from their surprise.

VIKINGS:

Odin?

HELGA:

(getting back to her kneating)

He's busy.

ERIK:

Is THAT Odin?

HELGA:

You'll have to wait till he's finished his game.

ERIK:

(shouting across)

Odin!

Odin leaves his game and saunters towards Erik.

ERIK:

We have come from the world of Midgard...

The child whom Odin is playing with points his hammer at the ground near Erik and a lightning bolt zaps into it. Erik jumps.

CHILD-THOR

Clear off.

ODIN:

No, wait, Thor.

ERIK:

You must help us.

ODIN:

We don't HAVE to help anybody.

ERIK:

Fenrir the Wolf covers the sun - men fight and kill each other

the whole time.

ODIN:

Why should WE care?

ERIK:

Because... you're... you're the Gods....

ODIN:

So?

ERIK:

Bring the Age of Ragnarok to an end and stop all this fighting and bloodshed. Harald looks around at the Vikings in increasing desperation.

HARALD:

This is ridiculous.

VIKINGS:

Sh!

HARALD:

Right!

The other Child-Gods have stopped playing around now and are watching Erik and Odin.

ODIN:

Erik the Viking! The things you seek are not in our power. We don't make men love each other or hate each other.

ERIK:

But you're the Gods!

ODIN:

Look... Erik...

Odin whistles. The other children look over their shoulders. From out of the darkness of the perimeter of the Hall, shadows emerge... shadows that, as they shuffle and stumble into the light, reveal themselves to be the heroes that the Vikings had expected to find in Valhalla. But they are not hale and hearty giants quaffing mead and reliving their great battles... they are, in fact, a sorry lot... the slain-in-battle still bearing the hideous deformities of their fatal wounds. Most have a sword or an axe buried in some part of their anatomy. One has been cleft in twain... The Vikings react to this grisly gathering as more and more of them emerge from the shadows. They gasp as they notice Snorri, Ivar, Thorfinn, Loki and Leif the Lucky.

ERIK:

Snorri! Ivar!

HARALD:

Here we are standing on a bare mountain top talking to thin air.

We notice that Harald's cloak is being blown about as if he were indeed on a bare mountain top. The other's cloaks are still. Sven's dad is gazing across at one horribly mutilated specimen.

SVEN'S DAD

Dad!

KEITEL:

(disbelievingly)

How can you tell?

SVEN'S DAD

I'll never forget him! The BASTARD!

Sven reacts. Sven's dad starts to go berserk.

SVEN'S DAD

He drove me mad!

SVEN:

Easy, Dad!

SVEN'S DAD

All his "you'll never be a Berserk if you lose your temper"...

SVEN:

Dad!

SVEN'S DAD

I hate you! I hate you!

Sven's dad collapses against Sven and Sven comforts him, understandingly. A figure emerges from the throng of dead. It is Thorfinn. Sven looks up at him.

THORFINN:

You won, Sven.

LOKI:

What right have YOU to try and stop men fighting, Erik the Viking? There is glory in battle. There are riches to be made and won...

KEITEL:

Made by YOU, Loki!

LOKI:

By YOU - Keitel Blacksmith! Don't you know, Erik, that is why he went with you? Ragnarok was good for his business...

KEITEL:

It's not my business any more!

Suddenly there is a howl... a bitter howl that echoes above and around the Halls of Asgaard and that gets more distant and more distant. Everyone (including the dead heroes and the Gods) freezes and looks up, listening. Perhaps we cut away to the boiling sky as it resolves itself into the shape of a wolf that snarls and slinks away. Odin turns to Erik as the howling recedes.

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