by John Shirley
The other two administered to the needs of the deceased coachmen, but the smaller one approached me. “Who are you, o man, that you stand in the presence of the Valkyries with gaze that withers not?”
Formal types, these Valkyries. “I am Loki,” I said.
“Brynhilda, I,” she said. Her hair was the finest gold, woven into lustrous, thick braids. Her silver battle armor seemed to be protecting a very pleasant figure.
“And who are … you know, your friends?”
“Friends we are not, godling. We are Valkyries one and all. My companions Geirdriful and Geiravör are both known for their prowess with the spear, as well as their caring touch in bringing the einherjar to Valhalla’s hallowed halls.”
“‘Einherjar'? Surely a reckless fool who ran himself into a wall, nearly striking my person while doing so, doesn’t qualify as a valiant warrior worthy of Valhalla?”
As Brynhilda started to answer, her shrewish companions cast their gaze in our direction. “Brynhilda! Leave the mortal alone and help us administer to this dead soul!”
She scoffed in their general direction. “Surely two such capable Valkyries as you are capable of preparing one mortal without young Brynhilda getting in your way!”
I whispered to her, suppressing my smile at her sharp tongue. “Can you also tell them that Loki is no mortal but a god most strong?”
They shouted back at her. “Foolish girl! Dost you not know that you talk to Loki the viper, Loki the snake, Loki the Balder-killer?”
Such was my lot when my reputation preceded me. There was no hiding anything from Valkyries.
“That was you?!” Brynhilda smiled largely enough to reveal to me all of her perfect teeth. “Pay them no mind, Loki Odinson! Valhalla’s halls are better for having the great Balder in it. And to have orchestrated the death of one so fair and beloved, heedless of the consequences to come, well, that is … that’s just cool!”
Her stoic Valkyrie demeanor disappeared and she was a girl again. A girl with a battle-sharpened sword and fitted armor of the finest metals, but a girl in Loki’s presence nonetheless. It appeared that even Valkyries who whiled away their days taking away departed warriors preferred the company of “bad boy” gods like myself. Would that I had known before that my machinations would prove so appealing to the fair sex.
“Fair Brynhilda, when you mentioned before that my actions against Balder had great consequences, what did you mean?”
“Oh, never mind that now, Loki. Come, let us take a flight and talk a while.” She reached down from her perch upon her steed, offering her hand so that I might join her on the back of her horse. Only, her horse was having none of that. Flaring flames from its nostrils, the horrid creature whipped its head around at me and would have snapped my hand off in its powerful jaws had Brynhilda not intervened. “Er, that is, come, Loki, let us instead take a walk. My horse will wait here for us.”
It appears none but Valkyries may sit upon their horses. Which suited me just fine. Perhaps my fair pup could use a meal of three such animals tonight, instead of just the two I already planned….
Upset were Brynhilda’s traveling companions, but even they admitted that the wretch they were carting away did not require the aid of three Valkyries. They allowed her pass, commenting that they appreciated the constant business I sent their way, and also looked forward to seeing me very soon. Which sounded on the surface to be a polite thing to say, but their wicked smiles told me there was deeper and more disconcerting meaning behind their words.
At the moment, I cared not about such things. I was entranced by Brynhilda as we walked. Partly because she seemed entranced with me, and any girl who admired Loki deserved in turn my admiration for their strikingly good taste.
“That coachman your Valkyrie-sisters spirited away—why did he gain admittance to a hall of warriors, anyway? Have the qualifications for Valhalla lapsed?”
Brynhilda, who also stood nearly a head’s length taller than me, considered this even as she used her sword as a walking stick, absentmindedly carving lines in the ground with its tip as we walked. “No. He was, as you say, a fool. But the coming conflagration—an event that will be forever marked as starting with your plot against fair Balder—will fill Valhalla’s halls with warriors, and our need for servants to suit their needs has grown.”
“My actions, you say?”
“Why, yes, Loki. Twilight is approaching. Fair Balder’s passing has ignited the flames of war, and the fire-demons from the depths have amassed an army of considerable enough size to finally—”
I cut her off with another question. “Never mind that now,” I said. “Since you Valkyries seem to know so much about, well, everything, what do you know of the Geirrods? Are they normal?”
“The Geirrods? The girl who helped the demise of yon coachmen? The other shield-maidens said that she is one of the cold ones.”
“The cold ones?”
She stopped and looked directly into my eyes. “Yes. The Jotun. Your people call them frost giants. According to legend,” she continued, noting the shock in my eyes, “they are the bane of the gods and the natural enemy of us Valkyries.”
“But … why? They seem … well, they seem nice.”
“Nice they are not, Loki. For, you see, their abilities are not only far beyond those of mortals, but their way of dealing with threats benefits not Valhalla. They tend to freeze their enemies, encasing them in glacier-thick blocks. This leaves them incapacitated, forever removed from the field of battle, but still living. And as such, off-limits to us Valkyries and denied rightful admittance to Valhalla.”
“But,” I countered, “if they are not claiming the lives of warriors, this makes them not dangerous to be around, right? These Geirrods, they’re not like the frost giants of eons past, are they?”
“No,” she said, getting gravely serious. “They’re not like those horrible frost giants from days of yore.
“They are the same ones.”
My slumber that evening was again long in coming. Brynhilda eventually took her leave, returning to Valhalla in an acrid burst of smoke and lightning. She told me she would have difficulty returning to see me without just cause, said cause being another dead soul to cart away to the great hall. I told her that I could see to that on a regular enough basis should she decide that she would like to see me again. She said she would, and she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, sending a jolt of electricity through me.
I instantly began plotting out who I could trick into dying so that I might see her again.
At school the next day, I made it through the rest of my studies in a daze. In part because there was nothing to be learned about life from repulsive dwarves and the other moronic persons presented to me as educators. Better that Loki should educate them about the ways of the world by cleaving their heads from their shoulders. But I digress.
I had much to ponder. Loki the loveless, Loki the forlorn, Loki the ever-detested … this is who I was in Asgard. This is how I saw myself. And suddenly, to be given a different perspective twice in the course of one day was worth heavy consideration.
I did feel a kinship with Gjalpa that was hard to explain, although made easier by the suggestion of her origin, considering the rumors of my own frost-giant lineage.
Then again, perhaps the frost-giant rumor was just Brynhilda looking to undercut the competition. After all, if she knew upon arrival that I was the Loki who was responsible for filling her hall with saps like Balder, then could she not also peer into my heart and see that I was smitten with Gjalpa?
Similarly, did Brynhilda realize that her very nature drew me to her as well? A shield maiden who proved to be so much more alluring than I was ever led to believe was an intriguing prospect indeed.
Was this what it had come to so suddenly? Choosing between Team Gjalpa or Team Brynhilda?
Perhaps I could seek to date both of these enchanting creatures? After all, was I not Loki, the great trickster? If I could not maintain the deception of bec
oming embroiled in relationships with both of these delights, was I any more worthy of my nickname than Eilif was of his?
I feel that loyalty is for lesser men. Or for bramble-headed louts like my half-brother Thor, who had not the brainpower to consider loving more than one other at a time. But I was not cut from that same simple sackcloth. Rather, if gods like my own father Odin had shown me anything, it was that all options are viable, and all outlets are to be pursued simultaneously. Great Loki the unloved deserved to make up for lost time. And besides, if Brynhilda could only come see me while also collecting the dead, I could just schedule those visits carefully around any other engagements I might have. This could work.
But first, the question of Gjalpa’s origin needed to be answered.
It was yet another dreary, cloudy day, the air growing ever more frigid. Fimbul Winter was seriously unpleasant the longer it persisted. Had I been informed that my machinations against Balder would result in such a terrible climate, I might well have chosen another god against whom to focus my ire.
I saw Surty upon arriving on the school grounds. She was speaking conspiratorially with two other fire demons, neither of whom were familiar to me.
“Good morn to you, Loki. Enjoying the cold weather? For now?” She winked at the other two.
“Yes, well, a good morning would be one that does not freeze the air in my lungs, Surty,” I said. The two fire demons with her chuckled at that, though I knew not why.
“Coming right up,” she said. Again, the other two laughed. I kept walking, paying no heed to that foolish girl or her flaming compatriots. In another day, I might well have set rock vipers against their flaming ankles as payment for their folly, but today, I was too anticipatory over the idea of seeing Gjalpa again and had no time to listen to their prattling.
I saw her standing with her other "family" members, and once again, she seemed preternaturally aware of my presence and turned to look at me. Only this time, her eyes blazed and I could read them clearly, even from a distance: “Stay away.”
This girl was demonstrating considerable mastery at sending mixed signals. But I acquiesced, and went to class.
She took her seat next to me some time after the lessons had started. Her eyes were the color of deepest black.
“Gjalpa, I….”
“Shh, Loki. Not here.”
“Not here? But we only sit and listen to a detestable dwarf. I will never take lessons from such a monster, I will—”
“Loki, please. I know you have questions.”
How could she know that?
“After school. Meet me under the branches of Yggdrasil.”
“Er, Gjalpa, if you’re not aware, the great world-tree’s branches extend out across the nine realms. One could spend several lifetimes searching under those limbs and never find what he was looking for.”
“Silly. Under the big branch, I mean. The one that blocks all of the sun’s rays from reaching Jotunheim.”
Silly. She called me silly. Whereas before, Loki would have plucked out the tongue of any who dared refer to me in such a way, when she said it, it made me warm inside. And in this terrible winter-world in which we all now lived, I would take the warmth where it came. Silly. This girl was utterly charming.
If she told me then that she possessed the power to read minds, I would not have doubted it, for she suddenly turned and looked at me with a smile that set my heart soaring into Yggdrasil’s great branches already.
After our lessons were complete—lessons that had me plotting out the demise of someone who would allow me to see Brynhilda soon (the dwarf was my leading candidate)—I briskly made my way to great Yggdrasil.
It is difficult for the mortal mind to fathom Yggdrasil’s size. Its mammoth trunk out of which its world-encompassing branches grew was thick enough at the base to require seven lifetimes to walk a circle around it. Its branches spanned galaxies, extending across all horizons of possibilities. But even amongst that unfathomable largeness, there was one limb that stood out. Fortunately, its location was near enough to Jotunheim that I reached it in a reasonable amount of time. Under this branch, the sun has never shown through—not even a sliver of its rays could penetrate the canopy above. It was there that I waited for Gjalpa. I did not have to wait long.
“I’m sorry about earlier today,” she said upon arrival, her appearance next to me surprising me despite the fact that I was always at the ready for anything. Her speed belied her size. “My … brothers and sisters, they are wary of me getting too close to outsiders.”
“Outsiders? Then let me in, Gjalpa. I have no wish to remain on the outside. I feel … a connection with you. A closeness I wish to nurture. I just … I need to know some things before I can fully surrender to the feelings I have now.”
“Loki, these words you tell me, they should scare me away. I am not so quickly drawn to others. I don’t easily let down my guard, but something about you … it make me think that I could see myself spending all day with you. Every day.”
All day? Every day? “Gjalpa, I-I think I know why your eye color changes as it does.”
“Oh, is that so,” she said, arching an eyebrow under which sat an ebony eyeball.
“Yes, when I first saw you, your eyes were black as a dwarf’s heart, curse that hated race. But then, another time, they flamed red.”
“Is my eye color really what you have questions about, gentle Loki?”
Gentle? Me?
“In truth, Gjalpa, no. It was … when the carriage nearly struck me, it slid out of the way on patches of ice. Patches you created.”
She dropped her eyes. But was that still a small smile pursing her lips? "This, again? How would I even do something like that, Loki? I am no goddess of the type you knew back in Asgard. I am a simple, humble—”
“—frost giantess,” I finished.
She looked up at me. “Oh, that is … what—why would you say such a thing?”
“It makes sense, Gjalpa. The ice patches. Your immense size. Your eye color changing from black to red when your temperature warms. Besides, I was talking to the Valkyrie and she said—”
“Which Valkyrie? When were you talking to a Valkyrie? And why?” She demanded, eyes blazing cold black fire. I saw her hands ball up into fists, and this time, so tight did she clench that particles of ice formed on the outside of her knuckles.
“Um, yesterday, when they collected the body, I stayed and talked to one of them, Brynhilda. She was … she was nice.” I said that last part in barely more than a whisper.
“Nice?! Valkyries are not nice! They steal the souls from men, which they then trap inside a placid hall, far away from the battlefield! That is torture for warriors born! And it seems they also use their evil ways to spread foul and deceitful rumors about others.”
Now, typically, when I have had conversations with women about affairs of the heart, it has ended with me either deceiving them into making a decision that they ultimately regret, or perhaps just transforming them into field mice to be eaten by crows. So my reaction to Gjalpa’s anger was surprising to me. I reached for her hand.
My palm made contact with her knuckles and stuck, so icily dry was her hand, so teeth-chatteringly cold. But I didn’t care.
“Gjalpa, fair Gjalpa. I know not the truth of my own origins; I only know the rumors and hearsay that the children of Asgard whisper about me. So I am not one to sit in judgment over another in this regard. Besides, I have only heard tell of how proud are the frost giants. They battle against the gods, knowing full well that the gods are more powerful but never acquiescing. Why, my own doltish brother alone has slain many a frost gi— er, I mean, they have my respect. As would you. If that was indeed your true nature.”
“My true nature, as you put it, Loki, necessitates that I hide who I am. It’s not so easy. Why do you think I am absent on some days?”
“I … I only know that on those days, my heart feels diminished.”
She smiled a sad smile at me, and then stood, drawing
herself up to her full, considerable height.
“Then perhaps I should demonstrate what would happen were I to show up at school on days when the sun does break through. Loki, if you will. The great limb of the world-tree that blots out the sun over Jotunheim—pull it back that the sun’s rays might finally peek through. Even in this Fimbul Winter, it’s a rather temperate day, and the sun will be eager to break through a spot it has never had a chance to caress before.”
I did as she asked. I quickly wove a lasso out of discarded leaves and branches and, turning into an eagle to allow me to fly it up high, circled the branch. We gods have tricks that mortals cannot even guess. I returned to my human form and pulled the loop taught, and yanked. The great limb creaked and groaned, but could not deny my godly power (well, once Gjalpa added her own considerable strength to the pulling, that is).
The branch bent and bowed downward, opening a hole in the canopy. Above it, the sun, so eager to reach this virgin spot of land upon which it had never been, cast sunny rays of warmth down, down.
The solar rays caressed Gjalpa. They didn’t touch me, for Loki ever dwells in the shadows, but they did embrace the girl next to me, anyway. Her eyes softened and again changed from deepest black to darkest red. But even more surprising was the effect it had on her skin.
Her face and hands began to appear luminescent, sparkling as though her body were covered with thousands of tiny diamonds. Her skin’s brilliance was stunning to behold. I was awestruck. Never have I seen a more beautiful, captivating sight. Her sparkling, bejeweled skin cast a glow of utter brilliance across the forest floor.
I was so taken aback by this that I saw great teardrops fall from my eyes and land at my feet. Only, it was then that I noticed that my eyes were in fact dry, and the falling drops of dew were coming from fair Gjalpa herself. Tears of her own? No—the drops were emitting from her cheeks, from her hands and wrists, her very fingertips seeming to melt, turning first to slush and then quickly to water.