I Bring the Fire Part III: Chaos

by C. Gockel

  And Cera obeys.

  Power whips through Loki with such strength he lifts from the ground. The humans around him become motionless. Dust and soot hang in the air in front of him like dirty snowflakes. The flames rising up from exploded cars, buildings and bodies become motionless pillars of orange light. The scene around Loki is blanketed in an eerie silence.

  Loki gasps. Preserving time in the immediate vicinity is Odin’s trick. Not something Loki is capable of at all, but with Cera...with Cera...oh.

  Loki looks up at the sky. Even the clouds have stopped moving. His consciousness slips along with the tendrils of Cera’s power; but he’s still separate, still himself. He feels Earth and all the planets around her sun stop their rotations. He feels the galaxy stop spinning, and the universe itself stop expanding. And he sees. His eyes widen as he realizes what a small branch of the World Tree the Nine Realms are. There are more branches, more realms, more life—too much and too varied to contemplate. He pulls back and looks only at the Nine Realms. His gaze falls upon the elf queen, still as a statue, staring in her pool at an image of himself, and sees Odin upon his throne—Heimdall whispering in his ear, a spear that is not Gungnir is in the All Father’s grasp. Where is Gungnir? Odin had last used the spear to trap Hoenir in his hut. At the moment Loki thinks of Hoenir, he sees the hut, with Gungnir still outside its front door in Muspelheim, the realm of fire, frozen tendrils of flames rising up from its roof like so many jagged teeth.

  Stretching his consciousness inside Hoenir’s home, Loki sees his boys immobilized by magic, crouched by the door, armed with Earth-style automatic weapons. Sigyn lies upon a couch looking towards their sons. Mimir’s head is on his favorite staff, leaning against the wall, mouth open, eyes turned towards the statues of Nari and Valli. He gasps in disbelief and relief, even as his throat tightens. He can’t fail them again.

  Hoenir is not with them; he is at a table, sipping tea. Hoenir is moving. And he is not the Hoenir that Loki remembers. His head is no longer balding, his pot belly is gone.

  “Hoenir?” Loki gasps.

  From where he is drinking tea, Hoenir looks up. The lines that used to surround his eyes have vanished. He looks so...young, like in the dream with Laugaz. Hoenir shakes his head, as though responding to Loki’s unspoken, Why?

  Feeling exposed, bitter and brittle, Loki looks away. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. His sons, Sigyn, Mimir and Hoenir are alive. And Hoenir is moving...Loki suddenly knows how that is possible, and how Loki was able to fight the influence of Odin’s ability to stop time as Loki became older and stronger. Odin’s magic lies in preservation and order, but chaos and creation cannot be stopped forever.

  Loki feels a tightening in his chest and lets out a breath. The universe has begun its outward journey again, but it is slower, still tethered...His hands ball into fists. Is he only himself because Cera’s power is diverted? If so, how much time does he have? What will she have him do when she releases the heavens from her hold? He looks around at the world where his body resides, the toppled buildings, the fires of exploded machines, and frozen bodies.

  He knows what she will do to Earth. His consciousness spins around the small globe he’s found himself on. He sees hundreds of different countries, divided by even more cultures and languages. New cultures and new language are forming every minute as human societies struggle to accommodate the changes their frantic pace of technological innovation has wrought. Compared to all the other nine realms with their static kings and queens, kingdoms and stale magic, this world is chaos.

  But Cera will put an end to it. She will combine all of humanity under one monolithic ideology, constrain the minds and ideas she doesn’t approve of, and decide what is best for all—just like Odin.

  His vision shrinks to just this one city. Chicago was chaos before he even arrived, diverse, vibrant, and corrupt. Its skyscrapers reach for the sky, even as grass and tree roots break through the shackles of pavement, destroying the pinnacles from below.

  Life destroying order. He breathes again, overwhelmed. Life as chaos? He thinks of Helen, of saving her life from the midwives who sought to end her. That was an act of chaos, too, defying the order of the Aesir. Or an act of love? Or maybe love is chaotic? Going to the cave for the lives of his sons and Sigyn...such an honorable thing, and so entirely against his nature. Even Valli knew it. Love could make wretches like him honorable and honorable beings do unthinkable things. Chaotic indeed.

  Hovering in midair, in this place outside of time, the voices are gone from his head, but he feels his connection to all of the humans who uttered them. Cera will destroy the voices—the languages, cultures, traditions and the faith behind them. She’ll end this realm of perfect chaos, of real life, and then she’ll expand, won’t she?

  His chest constricts and he feels Cera’s power snap as the universe begins to expand again in earnest. The galaxies begin to pull against Cera’s fetters.

  He doesn’t have much time left. What does he want for his sons and the voices of chaos in his head? Nine Realms ruled by Odin or a universe ruled by Cera?

  A ragged breath comes from his lungs stirring the snowflakes of soot in its wake. Every other realm is in stasis enforced by Odin, and Cera would be no better. This realm belongs to no one; it is ruled by change, life, and chaos.

  He smirks, even as he feels the galaxies grind into motion. In a way, this realm is Loki’s.

  He doesn’t have to choose between Odin and Cera. He may be an incarnation of chaos, but he’s a trickster, too—and he always keeps his oaths, after all.

  Loki turns his eyes towards his apartment. Amy is standing there, an immobilized Ratatoskr in her grip. What he is about to do is unfair, but he isn’t justice incarnate.

  “Amy,” he whispers. “Move.”

  x x x x

  Amy blinks, an afterimage of jet planes on fire in her mind, but what she sees before her is very different. She’s no longer staring out of Loki’s eyes through his windows. Instead the windows show him floating above the ground, his skin back to brilliant blue. The world around him is frozen in place. She sees soot and debris hanging in the air.

  Loki is smirking, his eyes on hers.

  “Loki?” she whispers. “Is that you?”

  The smirk softens. “I don’t have much time. Don’t let me forget next time who I am, what I am.”

  “Next time?” Amy says.

  Loki shrugs and he gives her a smile that’s too thin and too sharp.

  And then she knows. “No, you can’t die!”

  He snorts. “Apparently not. But it will hide me from Odin for a while.”

  Clutching a motionless Ratatoskr to her, Amy stands and limps to the window. “No, there’s got to be another way!”

  “Remember for me,” Loki says. She feels heat upon her forehead and she closes her eyes for a moment, overcome by a wave of dizziness. When she opens her eyes, Loki’s smile is gone.

  He sucks in a breath and whispers, “The heavens are on the move. There isn’t much time.”

  Pressing her free hand to the glass, Amy whispers, “No, please.”

  Tilting his head, Loki sighs. Sounding very tired, he whispers, “I won’t be the destroyer, Amy. Not this time.”

  Amy’s brow furrows and she feels a lump in her throat, tears burning in her eyes. “I don’t want you to go,” she says.

  Loki swallows. For a moment she sees something like sorrow flicker across his face. “Thank you,” he says.

  And then, smiling gently, he gives a sort of half shrug. Dropping his eyes to the squirrel in Amy’s arms, Loki says, “Ratatoskr, you incorrigible gossip, wake up and watch this.”

  There is a shudder in her arms, and then a mumbled, “The fuck?”

  Lifting his eyes back to hers, Loki winks and his lips quirk. Around and behind him flames, dust and debris start to swirl as though in slow motion.

  “Cera!” Loki cries, turning his face to the sky.

  “Loki! We’re almost together again. Why did
you make us stop everything?” Cera’s voice says, sounding like nothing so much as a confused child.

  “I needed time to think.” Loki says. “You’re right, let’s end the games!”

  “We will wipe their minds!” Cera says, her voice chillingly cheery.

  “Erp,” says Ratatoskr.

  Shivering, Amy bites her lip.

  Loki snorts. “Oh, no, this place is too far gone for that. We need to start over completely!”

  “Eeep!” says Ratatoskr.

  “We can do that?” says Cera.

  Amy shudders. Ratatoskr trembles.

  “With my imagination? And your power? Of course!” says Loki, grinning maniacally. He throws out his arms, lifting them heavenward. “But first, what we need is a very, very Big Bang.”

  Around him light begins to swirl. Loki gasps, his eyes going wide. He glances up in Amy’s direction and gives her a small nod.

  “No!” she says, her vision blurry with tears. Ratatoskr trembles more violently in her arms—or maybe that is her trembling.

  Loki smiles at her. And then he winks.

  Behind Loki flames begin to leap and swirl in earnest, debris falling out of the sky as his body and armor pulse with brightness. And then for a heart beat Loki is a single point of light in a vast emptiness. His mouth opens in a silent scream, and suddenly Loki is a burst of light and fire exploding outward. Amy cries out. The window is a wall of fire...

  ...and then it is just a window again. Amy is looking out at blue sky peeking out beyond retreating thunder clouds and smoke.

  Ratatoskr squeaks. “World Tree’s nuts! He took the damn thing into the In-Between.” His tail swishes. “Loki tricked it into destroying itself!”

  The squirrel chitters and then laughs. “The Sly One saved us!”

  Amy squeezes him tight, her vision completely obscured by tears. “Yes.”

  Chapter 13

  When the universe starts to slow, Hoenir doesn’t recognize it at first.

  Mimir, Sigyn, Valli, Nari, and all of Hoenir’s extensive friends and pets have already been frozen in time for months, so their stillness doesn’t alert him. When Odin thrust Gungnir into the ground, Hoenir’s hut was surging with magic, about to leave Asgard on its way to Musselpheim. The spells of the hut and staff had crossed. The hut made the journey, but it and everything in it had been frozen by Gungnir’s magic upon arriving.

  Hoenir sighs. Except for himself. Sipping his tea, he glances out the window at Gungnir. He’s given up trying to tear the thing out of the ground and end the spell. The magic of the preserver is splendid at preserving itself. But Odin’s magic had worked against the All Father this time. The hut is frozen in one of Musselpheim’s flaming pits, where Heimdall never thought to look, and Odin’s ravens can’t fly. And while it has certainly been lonely, freezing Hoenir’s hut in time did have some advantages. Hoenir looks to the door that leads to his velociraptors’ pens. He hasn’t had to feed them since his imprisonment began.

  Of course, Hoenir’s own appetite is another matter. He looks down at his waist, thinner than it’s been in millenia. He’s been rationing his food—not that he can die, but he doesn’t like to be hungry. The paunch had taken too much energy to maintain, and using magic to age himself, slow his metabolism, and thin his hair had been too much of a bother.

  He looks out the window, past the columns of frozen fire that surround his house. His breath catches. The fires beyond his prison have stopped, too. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and also a presence he knows well.

  “Hoenir?”

  He feels rather than hears Loki say his name. He looks up and only sees his ceiling.

  He feels Loki’s sense of betrayal. Or maybe it is just the weight of his own guilt. No matter how Hoenir tells himself that the deal he’d struck with Odin was the only way to save the Nine Realms and Loki...

  Or maybe you just like to keep Loki close, a wicked voice in his mind whispers. Hoenir shakes his head, and Loki’s presence fades, leaving Hoenir feeling empty and very, very tired. Not for the first time he envies Loki his ignorance, and the fresh starts he’s had over the centuries.

  Taking a long draught of his tea, Hoenir stares down into his cup and swirls the leaves. He cannot be with Loki, but he can watch. In the dregs of his tea a picture begins to form of the whole of the universe. His eyebrows go up, the universe itself has stopped, not just one branch of the tree—everything. Loki has Cera then. Breath catching and hands shaking, Hoenir swirls the cup again.

  He sees the city of Chicago but where there should be buildings there is dust and rubble with Loki as its focal point, his skin full-blue, his hair black. Hoenir’s eyes mist at the sight. Whenever Loki starts to turn blue it means his magic is surging, and subconsciously he suspects a transformation is near. The picture starts to blur. Hoenir swirls the cup again, this time without ceasing. The picture shimmers and wiggles, and sound emerges.

  “Amy,” Loki whispers, black eyes staring at a point in the sky. “Move.”

  Squinting and shaking the cup, Hoenir sees the girl moving forward in Loki’s apartment. She wears the raiment of convalescence of her people. She is clutching an immobilized Ratatoskr to her stomach. Hoenir’s been watching Loki’s courtship of her; it is oddly comforting to know Loki misses him, too. The girl is so much like Hoenir himself, or how Hoenir was.

  Hoenir’s brow furrows. Her face is drawn and pale, but she is pretty, in the way new life is. She is definitely Loki’s type, too, curvaceous; not thin and androgynous as is the fashion of her people. Hoenir is jealous of her. Odin may prefer to be male, Loki may not care one way or another, but Hoenir, or that part of the universe that is part of him, would prefer to be female—in other lives the babies that Creation has had! With time, Hoenir could change himself; but Odin’s punishment would be severe. Hoenir sighs. He has been stuck stitching creatures together, or animating bits of this and that.

  In the scene in his cup, Loki says, “I don’t have much time. Don’t let me forget next time who I am, what I am.”

  “Next time?” Amy says.

  Loki shrugs and smirks.

  Realization dawns on the girl’s face and in Hoenir at the same time. Hoenir’s eyes widen. Loki knows he will transform. And knows enough to know that he will forget nearly everything—he always flubs the transition. Loki will only be bound by the oath Hoenir saw him make to destroy Odin and Asgard. Sucking in a breath, Hoenir tilts his head. Loki is binding himself to this girl, too.

  “No, you can’t die!” she says.

  The image goes blurry, or Hoenir’s eyes fill with tears, he’s not sure which.

  “I won’t be the destroyer, Amy. Not this time,” Loki says, and Hoenir’s concentration snaps. He finds himself gasping for breath. All that he has done for Loki, it hasn’t been in vain. And all that he kept from Loki hasn’t damaged him irreparably. But Hoenir won’t be able to help him next time.

  Gulping in a breath, Hoenir looks out the window at Gungnir. The spear has Hoenir pinned here like a butterfly. Dropping his head, in frustration, sorrow, and anger, Hoenir suddenly feels a subtle shift. Hearing a rattle beyond the hut, Hoenir looks up and sees Gungnir quaking in the ground. And then Hoenir feels it, the universe starting to move again, its momentum working against Odin’s magic. Hoenir scrambles to his feet. Hesitating just a moment, he walks past the still figures of Valli of Nari, out the door, and through columns of frozen flame. Just as he reaches the spear it shatters into three pieces. Heat instantly whips around him as the flames spring to life. In wonder, Hoenir picks up the remains of Gungnir and moves as quickly as he can back into the safety of the hut.

  “What’s going on?” says Nari as Hoenir shuts the door.

  “Where are we?” says Sigyn. “Why are the windows filled with flame?”

  “Where are the Valkyries? I want to see how they stand up to an M16,” shouts Valli.

  “Well—” says Mimir.

  “Ragnarok,” says Hoenir. The end of the world. His
voice comes out, shaky and dry. It’s been so long since he’s used it. But he needs it now; and the bargain he made to Odin is over.

  There is silence in the room. Hoenir looks up at the startled faces. “Loki is free,” Hoenir says. Or will be departing his most recent host very soon.

  “Oh, dear,” says Mimir. Of course, he is the only one besides Hoenir who understands.

  “Mimir, explain,” says Hoenir; it’s a cruel thing to ask, but Hoenir can’t bring himself to do it.

  Detaching the blade from the tip of the spear, Hoenir stares at the pieces for a moment. They still contain some of Odin’s magic. He tips his head in contemplation. Odin will be seeking the new Loki—and the All Father will seek Hoenir too.

  Hoenir turns the pieces of Gungnir over in his hand. Loki always seeks a host that’s personality and circumstances are compatible with chaos, just as Odin seeks a host compatible with order and preservation, and the piece of the universe inhabiting Hoenir seeks a body compatible with creation.

  Hoenir inspects one of the pieces of Gungnir’s staff. This new Loki will find his way to the girl. He thinks of her staring out of Loki’s window. He’s seen her many other times, studying her veterinary journals, washing Fenrir—even at the talk on REM sleep. She is so like Hoenir...

  An idea blossoms in Hoenir’s mind. A way to save Loki from Odin, this time, for real. And a way to hide from Odin and shed that part of him that has made him uncomfortable in this skin for over a millenia. It’s been a long time since Hoenir has really wanted something, but suddenly he wants to meet Miss Lewis very much.

  Mimir clears his throat. Snapping from his trance, Hoenir hands the tip of the spear to Sigyn; to Nari and Valli he gives each a piece of Gungnir’s staff. He’s sure they’ll find them useful.

  Clutching the last piece of Odin’s weapon, Hoenir steps from the room into his workshop, leaving the others quiet and probably in shock. Looking quickly around at the pieces of other spears, arrows, and swords he’s collected, he sees nothing that quite works. Hoenir goes quickly to the back, opens another door, and steps into a warehouse-sized room containing bric-a-brac from every realm he and those before him acquired through the millennia. He needs something innocuous...and an innocuous being to wield the weapon he will be creating. His eyes fall onto a flower print umbrella and his eyebrows jump.