Loki

by Vasich, Mike

  “Thief of time . . .”

  They opened their mouths to speak, but the voices came from everywhere at once, resonating throughout the cavern. Their forms shifted as they addressed him, folding in upon themselves and reforming.

  He narrowed his eyes. It was clear that they addressed him, but he didn't understand their allusions. He was intrigued, however, wondering what their import might be. He pushed it from his mind; he was here to find an answer to the problem of the mason, not to decipher riddles.

  “You are the Norns?” he asked.

  The shapes swirled and blended into one, then collapsed, folding into the mist at his feet. There was a cool breeze on the back of his neck, and he whirled, seeing another mist figure just behind him with hand outstretched. It was not fear that he felt exactly, but there was something about this place and these beings that stirred awe in him.

  “We are that which has become. . .”

  “that which is happening . . .”

  “that which needs to occur . . .”

  “Fate . . .”

  “Being . . .”

  “Necessity . . .”

  The mist women collapsed again. He looked around the cavern and saw tendrils reforming in three different places.

  “I am Loki of—”

  “We know . . .”

  “who you are . . .”

  “Loki of Asgard . . .”

  He was unsettled, but at least satisfied that he had found them, and that they spoke to him. He had wondered more than once if beings such as this would address him, but his need to find an answer to the riddle of the mason drove him forward, despite the uncertainty.

  “You must know why I am here, then.”

  “The . . .”

  “stone . . .”

  “builder . . .”

  “Will you tell me what sorcery shields him? Can the bargain be broken?”

  There was a pause as the mists reformed elsewhere in the chamber.

  “The stone builder . . .”

  “will not . . .”

  “complete the wall . . .”

  He was taken aback. The Norns knew all, or so it was said. He needed to know more, however. “How will he be stopped without breaking the bargain?”

  “He will . . .”

  “be cheated . . .”

  “of his prize . . .”

  “but you . . .”

  “will be cheated. . .”

  “of far more . . .”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Stare . . .”

  “into . . .”

  “the well . . .”

  Loki turned from them slowly, suspicious, but still curious. He looked down into the swirling mists of the well, seeing nothing at first. Out of the darkness he began to see shapes and colors, a scene forming.

  The mist began to form into creatures with multiple legs and arms and others who were half alive and half dead, beasts who were half man, a creature with a face of black fire, a bodiless head with one eye, and long-fanged serpents who dripped venom.

  “What is this that you show me?”

  “Monsters will. . .”

  “issue forth . . .”

  “from you . . .”

  Impatience rose in his breast. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “You straddle two. . .”

  “worlds and it will . . .”

  “be your undoing . . .”

  “but your . . .”

  “strength . . .”

  “as well . . .”

  A mist figure formed next to him and pointed down into the well. He looked down again to see that the monsters had vanished. In their place, the mists roiled, forming something new.

  He saw a tree form, and then another and another, until there was an entire orchard of trees in the mists of the well. They were bountiful and loaded with heavy fruit. Slowly they began to change, to wither. Their long branches formed into wizened arms with long, brittle fingers. Their bark became the rough and wrinkled skin of old age. They shrunk and stooped over, the weight of long life bending them close to the ground. Their holes became blank, gaping eye sockets that had seen everything, but now knew nothing. Instead of a vast orchard, he now looked on a forest of walking corpses, dead in all but name.

  “You will steal . . .”

  “and restore . . .”

  “life, only to . . .”

  “steal it . . .”

  “again . . .”

  “once more . . .”

  The scene shifted. An eyeless face stared back at him. As the rest of the body began to form, it held a bowl up to him with white hands. The bowl was empty, but it slowly began to fill with a dark red liquid. The hands dropped it, and the liquid inside splattered over other shadowy figures, dozens of them who stood nearby. The stains spread over the figures until it had encompassed all of them, and they began to melt into the ground till all he could see was a pool of red.

  The pool cleared and he could see a small fish swimming rapidly through the water. It looked as though it was trying to evade something. Dozens of grasping hands suddenly thrust down into the water, and the fish darted away from them. But wherever it swam, more hands darted down until finally it was grabbed. The hands converged on the fish, and it disappeared amidst the amorphous pile of flesh that consumed it.

  “Father of the dead . . .”

  “Bearer of flame . . .”

  “Wearer of masks . . .”

  The Norns chanted while their forms wavered before him.

  “You will kill . . .”

  “that which cannot . . .”

  “be killed . . .”

  “You will . . .”

  “herald destruction . . .”

  “and rebirth . . .”

  He clenched his fists. “Why do you show me these scenes?” he asked. “How will this help me stop the rebuilding of the wall?” Why do they waste my time with riddles and prophecy? he thought. The wall nears completion while I dally here.

  They did not reply, but the scene in the well continued to shift. He saw himself, but misty and insubstantial. At his feet were tiny figures. As the mist-Loki bent down to look more closely at the tiny men at his feet, his arms began to change. They grew longer and more sinuous, and scales became visible. His fingers melded together, and his hands became heads with slitted eyes, while forked tongues continuously flicked from their fanged mouths.

  The mist-Loki recoiled in horror at what his arms had become, but as his mouth opened wide his teeth began to grow longer and sharper, and his mouth and nose elongated. His ears became pointed, and black hair sprouted across his lupine face. His legs withered underneath him. He could see the flesh shrivel and blacken, the bones nearly poking through as the flesh rotted and drew flies.

  The image began to smolder, tendrils of smoke rising until he finally burst into flames. He waved arms wildly, and it looked as though he was in pain, but as Loki looked more closely at the face in the mist-image, he noticed that the expression seemed almost . . . satisfied.

  The flames spread out and consumed all the figures at his feet. He noticed that one grasped a hammer and another a spear, but he saw little else as the tiny men turned to ash. The fire continued to growuntil the entire scene was nothing but fire, burning so bright that he had to look away. When he looked back the scene was gone, returned back to swirling mist and nothingness.

  “The answer . . .”

  “is . . .”

  “within you . . .”

  He looked over at them, curious and annoyed simultaneously. They had shown him something of the future, he was sure, but he did not know what to make of it. Were any of these scenes of use to him?

  “What answer? I saw nothing but images of horror. You have shown me nothing of the sorcery that masks the mason.”

  “You will . . .”

  “be . . .”

  “mother and . . .”

  “father to . . .”

  “your . . .”

  “an
swer . . .”

  “You are . . .”

  “both one . . .”

  “and many . . .”

  “You speak in riddles.” He had lost his patience. What use was traveling here when all they gave him were vague images and suggestions about what might come to be? “If you will tell me nothing useful, then I am finished with you.” He turned away from the well and began walking back towards where he had found himself on the ground. He gave only an instant of thought about how he might leave this place.

  “Sly One . . .”

  “Trickster . . .”

  “Sky Traveler . . .”

  He stopped and turned. Only one mist shape remained, vaguely female but with three heads. They spoke in unison.

  “Seek the stone builder. You are one and the same.”

  The mist shape collapsed upon itself and did not rise. He waited for the shapes to return or the voices to tell him more, but nothing stirred except the continuous flow of mist from the Well of Urd. Frustration eating at the edges of his mind, he turned to find himself thrust back into the black nothingness of Yggdrasil.

  Chapter Six

  Their words danced on the edge of his thoughts as he made the journey back to Asgard. He had found himself outside of the tree, his horse still where he had left it, almost as if it had been mere minutes since he had seen the animal. He swiftly rode it back towards the spires of Asgard, all the while pondering what the Norns had revealed—not much—and even more what they had hinted at.

  They had called him child of chaos, harbinger of twilight, thief of time. He did not know what those things meant, and yet was certain they meant something. He could concoct a thousand explanations for those epithets and still not truly know what they meant. Monsters will issue forth from you . . . You straddle two worlds . . . The answer is within you.

  He was not foolhardy enough to dismiss their riddles, but decided that he could not pursue them while the threat of the mason still hung over his head. Some of what they had said seemed more relevant to the problem at hand, while others touched on distant things. You will be father and mother to your answer, they had said. There was a sliver of truth there, if only he could pull it forth. He hoped a revelation would come once he returned to Asgard. He would seek the mason, as they had told him. You are one and the same. Perhaps he would understand what they meant once he found the mason.

  His return was speedy. His mount was completely replenished while it grazed on the grasses at the foot of Yggdrasil, and it ran without complaint and without rest for nearly a day, at the end of which he could see Asgard in the distance. Time was short. The wall would be completed within days, at most, and he still had no idea what he would do.

  Loki dismounted and let his horse rest for a while. The beast did not seem to need it, but it gave him a chance to wander about and consider his choices—or fret about his lack of them—before he returned. The Norns had not given him any solution to stopping the mason. Maybe his fate was to complete the rebuilding and claim Freyja, and thus to launch the Aesir on another path than the one they might be traveling. If so, his own life-line carved into Yggdrasil may very well be short indeed. It was quite possible that he could be slain in response to Freyja’s bondage to the mason. All it would require was for Odin to allow it, or fail to disallow it. He could easily imagine Frey intent on settling the offense against him, and he doubted that he could best him in combat.

  A rumbling in the distance stirred him from his thoughts. The familiar dust cloud in the wake of the mason’s progress was headed out of Asgard and towards a quarry. Loki was closer, and he thought he could arrive in time to observe the mason at work. It was possible that he could find a weakness out here, away from the city, before it was too late. He mounted his horse and rode off at speed.

  The quarry, a deep bowl on the edge of a thick, crescent-shaped copse of ancient trees, was littered with scraps of once irregular boulders that had been hewn down to enormous blocks by the mason’s chisel. Some large boulders remained, and the mason would no doubt use these for his reconstruction of the wall.

  Loki led his horse to the copse and wandered in, finding a spot where he could observe the quarry without being observed in turn. He dismounted and let his horse graze while he crept closer.

  He could see the trail of dust in the wake of the mason’s horse before he could see the horse itself. Its speed was incredible, and it came fully into view shortly after he spotted it. It was a powerfully built draft, mottled gray with a long, silver mane, and its body was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. As it drew closer, Loki could see the mason riding on the net that trailed behind the horse.

  He looked little different than before. A large man with powerful arms and broad shoulders, he was ideally suited for heavy work such as this. As before, Loki sensed the sorcery surrounding him, a shifting that was out of place. It was as if each movement he made was an instant off, like he was a shadow of himself.

  As Loki watched, the mason and walked down into the quarry. He approached a boulder twice his height and began hitting it with swift and precise strokes with his hammer, his hands moving faster than Loki could follow. In mere minutes he had finished crafting a near-perfect square building block. He moved on to another boulder and repeated the process, each blow sending chipped stone flying and dust wafting into the air.

  After seeing him make quick work of boulder after boulder, Loki barely questioned how the mason would haul the blocks up the side of the quarry. He was certain that he would simply pick them up—ton upon ton of stone block—and cart them up the side, plopping them down onto the net for his horse to pull.

  Loki abandoned any idea that he may have entertained of attacking the mason after seeing him at work. Aside from breaking the bargain, what truly stayed his hand was his perfect certainty that he would never survive to land a second blow should he be foolish enough to attack him.

  As he continued to observe, he noticed the mason’s outline shifting subtly. He seemed at one point no taller than Loki, and then at another to rival Thor’s height. His arms, as they struck stone with hammer, seemed to extend longer, and seemed to also be numerous, as if he could spy multiples while they quickly hammered away. It must have been a trick of his motion, the speed of his hammer striking making it appear as if he had more than two arms, but it was disconcerting.

  Loki strangely felt a kinship as he watched. Secrets were being revealed as he observed the mason, and he felt different, as if he was beginning to tap into something that existed within himself. He was not sure he could put a name to it, but there was a sense that he knew more, that he was seeing secret things that others could not perceive.

  The answer is within you, the Norns had told him. Something about his own nature was being revealed as he watched the mason, something fluid. He felt his skin as a restrictive container, something that attempted to prevent him from . . . what? He was not sure. He only knew that some secret contained within him was on the verge of release. The mason was not what he appeared to be, and Loki suddenly felt that it was true for him as well. You are one and the same, they had said.

  The mason would be done with the blocks soon enough. After loading them, he would head back to Asgard and finish the rebuilding. He would need another trip back to the quarry, but all would be lost if Loki did not act soon. Glancing once more at the mason’s horse, he silently cursed the condition in the bargain that allowed him the use of this beast. If only that condition had not been granted, the mason would surely have failed to get this far.

  As he stared at the horse, he began to see as it saw. He could feel how it gauged its footing subtly, each step being instantly measured even while it set hooves down. He could see the way the animal saw its surroundings, the hidden dangers in a stand of trees, the open plains filled with tall shoots that sustained life. He could feel its power and strength, the feel of the wind whipping its mane as it galloped.

  Something stirred within him, and he slowly began to grasp the Norns’ message. He lo
oked over at the mason and was shocked to see his true form. Jaw agape, Loki now understood how he could complete so much of the wall in such a short time. Yet even while he felt disgust and revulsion at the mason's true nature, he also finally understood why he had noticed the sorcery when no others had.

  He would not have believed it if he had simply been told by the Norns, and they must have known that. Instead, all they could do was hint at his own true nature, a nature that could be revealed by a monster who masqueraded as a simple stone builder. The realization stunned him, even as he recognized it as the truth. His ancestry was elsewhere, and he could not deny it now that he felt it asserting itself within him. You are one and the same.

  He was staggered with the consequences of what this meant. His entire life—millennia of time spent on Asgard—was false. He was no more one of the Aesir than the mason was, and the thought sickened him, even while he accepted it as the truth.

  He forced his revulsion down, at once concocting a way that he might use his newfound knowledge. He may not truly be Aesir, but that was something that could still be hidden. They would not need to know—they would likely kill him if they did. The mere fact of his true nature would not change who he was and who he served. It would be a lie to continue as he had, but he did not care. A lie that would never be revealed did not truly exist. The truth was that he served the High One above all, even now, and the bare fact of his true ancestry was meaningless.

  As he looked back at the horse the answer came to him. The animal had allowed the mason to get further in the rebuilding than he would have been able to do alone. He would not be able to complete the wall without the beast.

  The stone builder will not complete the wall, he recalled.

  His idea would not have been possible without the Norns' hints and the revelation of his true self. It would not be something he relished, but it would cease the rebuilding and save Freyja, and he would not have to contend with the ghoulish Einherjar or angry Asgardians with more might than wit. He would sacrifice once more for the bond he held with the Allfather.

  As he felt his form begin to change, he wondered if it was not more honorable for him to do this thing knowing who he really was. It gave him further satisfaction to know that no other of the Aesir would sacrifice himself in this way. They would rattle their swords and shout their fury to the heavens, but none would ever do what he planned. Nor would they be grateful for his sacrifice if they knew of it. All they need know is that he prevented the wall from being rebuilt. They may be suspicious, but they could not fail to honor him for his service.