by Dima Zales
He looks up to Odin. Unlike the other Aesir who all chose to appear closer to the age of 25, Odin appears to be near the human age of 50. He wears a patch over a missing eye; he purportedly exchanged that eye for wisdom. As Loki draws closer, he sees Odin’s one eye widen, as though in alarm.
Loki blinks, and Odin’s gaze is its normal steely calm. “You have something you wish to discuss?” Odin says.
Walking up and around until he stands just a pace from Odin, his back to Valli and Nari, Loki says, “Let my sons go.”
“I don’t think you understand how dangerous Valli and Nari have become,” Odin says, his one eye unblinking.
Scowling, Loki says, “You’re wrong.” They aren’t strong in magic, not like Helen.
“No,” says Odin. “I am not.” Sighing, Odin says, “You know I will do anything to preserve the safety of the nine realms.”
Loki waves a hand. “Yes, yes, I know. Even allowing the death of your own beautiful son.” Tilting his head he sneers. “I’m not that selfless.”
“Loki,” Odin says. “There are things happening now, new passages opening between the realms that should remain closed, branches from other realms approaching ours. Asgard cannot afford to be divided by this idea they have … this democracy … ”
Rolling his eyes, Loki says, “It’s more of a proto-democracy, hardly a threat.”
“Heimdall and the Diar demand this,” Odin says, thumping his spear again. “For the stability of the realms, for order, I must do what must be done.”
Loki’s eyes flick to the immobilized figure of Heimdall, the “all seeing god” of order. He and Loki do not get along well.
Loki looks back at Odin. How long has he carried the weight of Odin’s desire to preserve the nine realms? How long has he carried Odin’s secrets? How often has he, as the Christians say, turned the other cheek … after Helen?
For Helen alone Odin owes him. “Let them go,” Loki whispers. “Or you make me your enemy.”
Odin blinks, and for a moment Loki imagines he sees hesitation. The other man’s face softens, perhaps in compassion or understanding. Odin certainly can’t be afraid of Loki. For a moment everything is worth it: obeying Odin, playing the fool, letting himself be cast as the coward, the shirker. But then Odin bangs his spear down three times and Loki feels the air pressure behind him drop.
“Hurry and you might catch them,” Odin says, his face flat.
With a cry of rage, Loki pulls the pin from the grenade, hurls it into the air, and rushes up the stairs of the dais. The sky is already opening up to the Void, a long tear in space time, like the funnel of a tornado twisting downwards.
Loki sees Valli spin so his back is to Nari’s side, and then they are gone, sucked up into the blackness. With a cry Loki follows, dimly aware of the ring of the grenade behind him.
In the glow of starlight, and nearly spent and broken magical objects, Loki sees his sons hovering before him, their mouths and eyes open wide, Vali’s hands desperately clasped around Nari’s scabbard. They’ve never been in this place before, but Loki has. Fifteen seconds. They can survive 15 seconds in the vacuum of space. Loki tries to use the threads of magic to move towards them, for what purpose he doesn’t even know. So they can all die together?
It is the only plan he has, but as he tries to implement it, something sucks him backwards.
Loki looks down in panic. A renegade branch of the World Tree, another tear in space and time has caught him … but there shouldn’t be one here. He looks back up for an instant and sees his sons vanish. Were they pulled backwards by another renegade branch? Suddenly there is a flash of color, and then he is blinded by sunlight, gasping in hot, humid air and falling backwards to the ground.
He failed. His world is gone. Blackness overtakes him.
Loki hears a voice, like a child’s, say, “Zd`rastvuyte,” and then, “`Kak `Vas za`vut?”
He opens his eyes. Loki has the gift for tongues, but it takes him a moment to recognize the language. A very powerful magical something is saying, “Hello. What’s your name?” far too cheerfully in Russian. He looks around — he’s in a forest on Earth. Instead of Russia, the stars overhead suggest the continent of North America. There is magic in a thick red glow around him like a mist. Whatever it is, the magic is very powerful. But there are no magical creatures on Midgard anymore, just beasts and humans, with their one, very weak, though intriguing, magical trick.
“Loki,” he says. Whatever the Russian speaking mist is, he doesn’t want to annoy it.
“You hear me, Comrade!” says the thing, still in Russian. Its voice fades; the mist dissipates.
Loki is alone on the ground. He is too filled with despair to worry about the magical Russian-speaking creature. Sitting up, he pulls up his knees, leans forward and buries his face in his hands. He sees Sigyn slumped in the chariot, he sees his sons’ terror-stricken faces in the Void flash before his eyes. He remembers the way they clung together, Valli clasping his hands to Nari’s scabbard.
… The scabbard! Nari’s scabbard. Long ago Loki gave it to him as a gift. Nari is an anglophile and the scabbard comes from that isle. It is enchanted to protect the bearer from harm. Is it powerful enough to save its bearer in the Void? Perhaps it could suspend them in time, just as Odin did to the crowd with Gungnir?
It is such a slim hope that Loki drops his hands and laughs. But he has to believe it. Not because it’s likely, but because he must believe it or he might stay here, in this spot, in this forest for a millennium.
He swallows and assesses his situation. Physically he is unharmed, but he’s very hungry. Using magic always makes him famished, and resisting whatever Odin did with his staff drained Loki tremendously.
He opens the knapsack quickly and pulls out the grenades. When he stole the grenades he also stole C-rations for their novelty. He scowls. The C-rations aren’t there. Belatedly he remembers discarding them decades ago. But there is something else, something wonderful. A small book, bound in white leather, the size of his palm. It is the Journal of Lothur. Hoenir must have packed it. Loki presses the book to his forehead and squeezes his eyes shut. More than a journal, it is a book of magic with maps of many of the secret back road branches of the World Tree. Having it is a small miracle.
Not that he can open space-time to travel any of those branches now. He is famished, and exhausted.
He sees a far off glow in the distance. Perhaps it is a human habitation where he can steal food. Climbing to his feet, he starts trudging towards the glow. There is the cry of a raven above his head, and for a moment he panics. But when he looks up at the shadows of the trees he sees only common ravens, not Odin’s messengers.
He hears a roar not far away. He hasn’t been here since the 1940’s, but he recognizes it as the sound of a roadway. It will be far easier to travel if he walks along it. That thought is just through his mind when he trips over something. Nearly falling to the ground, he curses, and a spurt of flame rises from his hand to the treetops. In the flame’s orange glow he sees an outcropping of stone rising at his feet.
His flame dissipates, and he does his best to walk around the rocks in the dark.
His brain, as it is wont to do, starts to scheme. After he gets to the human village and eats his fill, then what? How will he find Valli and Nari in the Void? No, not the Void, they disappeared before he did. To what realm? He’ll have to search them all.
Swallowing, he tries not to let the enormity of the task overwhelm him. He is rather good at achieving impossible things. Even Odin will give him that. Scowling at the thought of the would-be executioner of his sons, he feels his body go hot.
From up ahead he hears the sound of tires screeching and some loud noises he can’t identify. He’s too hungry to be curious. He just steps onto the gravel on the side of the road. Concentrating, he creates an illusion of the attire that was popular the last time he was on this planet. His armor is still on. If anyone touches him they will feel it, but he will look like he belongs.
With a deep breath he starts walking towards the lights of human habitation.
An automobile approaches him. It has a shape he’s never seen before, trapezoidish, large and boxy. Thinking perhaps that the driver will give him a lift, he raises his hand. It slows for a moment, and Loki sees a flash of white hair, but then it speeds away. Loki scowls and keeps going, every step dragging more than the last.
Far up ahead the boxy, trapezoidish automobile slows and stops. Loki hears a voice in the distance and something that sounds like a growl and maybe a yelp.
A few minutes later he feels something. Something that makes every hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It’s something he has not felt in centuries, the one, small, intriguing human magical trick: A prayer.
Someone, anyone, help me.
2
Amy lies on the ground, one side of her face pressed in the dirt, the other side with the cold end of a gun to her cheek. She can hear her breath in her ears, or is that his breath? The guy’s knee is on her back. He’s silent. The hand is trembling. In fear … or … she swallows … or excitement.
Closing her eyes, she tries to remember her self defense courses she took with Grandma. The first rule was to verify that your attacker’s weapon is genuine.
Licking her lips, she says, “Is that a … a … real gun?”
He laughs. “You want me to take it away from your cheek, don’t you? Don’t you?”
He pushes the muzzle more tightly against her, and Amy screws her eyes shut.
From the grass towards the road there is the sound of a high-pitched growl punctuated by occasional whimpering.
Fenrir! Screwing her eyes tighter, Amy desperately thinks, Fenrir, please, just distract him …
From the direction of the man’s van comes another voice. “Fenrir?” Amy’s heart stops. There are two guys? Oh, no.
“Who’s there?” shouts the man that’s holding her down. The trembling of the gun’s muzzle stops and steadies.
Amy hears the snap of a twig close to her and Fenrir’s pathetic growl and tiny yips a little further off.
“I’m not moving this gun from her face!” the man says.
The whimpering disappears. The high-pitched growl changes and deepens.
“What the … ” her captor stutters and pulls the gun away. Amy darts into the car, rolls over and tries to yank her keychain out of the ignition, but it’s jammed. Fumbling, she manages to detach the pepper spray.
She hears the sound of gunshots and the man cursing. Looking out the window, she sees an enormous wolf the size of a small pony, muzzle white with foam, crouching as though about to spring. The bullets seem to have no effect on it, and Amy draws back further into her overturned car.
And then there is a shadow over the window, a dull thudding noise over and over again, and then the sound of a crack. The deep growling is gone. There is just Fenrir’s pathetic whimpering.
The shadow moves away and Amy blinks in confusion. And there, just visible in the indirect light of her headlights, is the man who was attacking her. He’s face down on the ground. The white hair on his head appears slick, black and shiny. Just beyond him is Fenrir, licking her tiny jaws, and wiggling forward on her belly.
A new face pops too suddenly into the window, younger, clean shaven, with sharp features. He’s wearing a fedora. “It’s going to be all right — .”
It’s the fedora that freaks her out. Amy fires the pepper spray. In slow motion it arcs towards him in a long stream.
The stranger throws up a hand just before it reaches his face. He blinks and then screams. “Aaauuuggghhhhhh!!!!”
Jumping back from the window, he shouts, “That stings!”
Unable to bear the sound of Fenrir’s whimpering, Amy scoots forward and out of the car. The man is shaking his hand. He seems to be shimmering. It looks like he’s wearing a fedora, a white shirt and dark, well-tailored pants that are sort of retro looking. And it also looks like he’s wearing a suit of weird armor, a sword waving at his hip.
Shaking his hand, he turns to her, “That’s how you reward someone, anyone, who saves your life? Firing snake venom at them?”
He slumps to the ground, still shaking his hand. The fedora, white shirt, and black pants seem to solidify around him. “I don’t know why I bothered.”
A shape wriggles towards him on the ground, whimpering and wagging its body.
“Fenrir!” Amy says.
Looking in the little dog’s direction, the man says, “Fenrir,” his voice sounding a little far off. Still shaking his one hand, he holds his other out to Amy’s dog. Fenrir tries to lick it.
Running forward, Amy holds up the pepper spray. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”
The look he gives her. It is such a look of what-are-you-some-kind-of-idiot that it actually makes Amy think he really won’t hurt Fenrir — or her. Also, Fenrir is licking his hand. Fenrir doesn’t lick men’s hands.
Fenrir is limping, actually almost crawling. Forgetting all about the stranger, Amy goes into full diagnostic mode. The angle of her leg, the way her hip is jutting … “Fenrir,” she says, “You’ve dislocated your hip. Oh, poor Baby.”
Fenrir turns to Amy and pants. She was trying to save Amy a few minutes ago … with a dislocated hip. Sitting down next to her, Amy says, “You are the best doggie in the world, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Fenrir wags her body and whimpers again.
“I am so sorry about this,” Amy says to Fenrir. She looks at Strange Man. “She likes you. Would you hold her front steady?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“Hold her,” says Amy, her brain going into fix-the-injured-little-creature mode.
Sighing, the man wraps his hands around Fenrir’s torso.
“I’m so sorry about this, Fenrir,” Amy says. “She may bite you,” she says to the stranger.
Before he can withdraw his hand, Amy’s already got her hands on the dislocated joint. It takes only seconds to relocate Fenrir’s hip. The dog yelps pitifully, but amazingly doesn’t bite. As soon as Amy’s done, she wiggles and jumps into Amy’s arms.
“That was well done,” says the stranger.
“Thank you,” says Amy. Her eyes fall on the man lying prone in front of her overturned car. The enormity of what has happened suddenly catches up to her. Looking down, she says, “And thank you.”
“Do you have any food?” the man asks. “That would be thanks enough.”
Clutching Fenrir to her chest and rubbing her sore neck, Amy looks towards her car. She has a cooler in the back seat if she can get it out, but … Her eyes fall to the man on the ground.
“I don’t think you have to worry about him,” the stranger says.
Amy’s eyes widen and she squeezes Fenrir a little tighter.
The stranger is silent. Somewhere an owl hoots.
“Your first time to see a corpse,” says the stranger softly. Amy looks quickly at him. “No,” she says, “I’ve seen plenty in the anatomy lab.”
He stares at her for a moment. His face is young, he can’t be much older than she is, but his expression is weary. “Do you have food in your automobile?” he says.
Amy blinks at the non-sequitur. “Yes, in the back seat. In the cooler.”
“Cooler?” he says.
Nodding her head towards the car, she says, “Just the cheap Styrofoam white box you get at the convenience mart … ”
The stranger stands up quickly and goes to her car. Amy’s not really paying attention to what he’s doing. She thinks she hears a car on the road. Running up out of the ditch she just catches sight of a car’s retreating rear lights. She almost swears. They didn’t even stop!
Putting Fenrir down, she goes back to her car and crawls through the window. The stranger is already pulling the cooler out of the backseat. It takes a while, but Amy finds her iPhone.
She tries to dial 911 but gets the no-service message.
Scowling in frustration, she stares at the man on the groun
d. She doesn’t want to stay here, not with the dead or dying man — oh, God, should she check if he’s dead? Will she be charged with manslaughter if she doesn’t? Will Strange Guy be charged with murder?
Crawling out of her car, she feels for a pulse. She can’t find anything and is both relieved and disgusted by the fact that she is relieved.
She has to get out of here. She begins frantically patting down the dead man’s body.
“What are you looking for?” Strange Guy says.
Amy glances up to see him sitting on the bank of the ditch, a box of Life cereal between his knees, Fenrir sitting in front of him. He throws a handful into his mouth and tosses a piece to her dog.
He looks so much calmer than she feels, and it’s not fair. She begins patting down the man again.
Not finding what she’s looking for, she murmurs, “They’re not here.”
“What?” Strange Guy says.
Amy looks up at the minivan. Getting up from the ground she runs around the corpse and out of the ditch. She lifts the latch on the passenger side door. It’s open. Maybe his keys are in here. She can drive the minivan to find help.
Stranger’s voice comes from close behind her. “I don’t think you should go into that man’s automobile.”
Ignoring him, Amy opens the glove box. There’s a narrow folio in there, long and leather bound.
“Don’t,” says Stranger, and his hand is suddenly coming from behind to grab it from her. But it’s too late. Amy’s already opening it, and pictures are spilling out. There are pictures of women in there, but mostly of children. For an instant the pictures shake in Amy’s bloody knuckles, and then she screams.
The man behind her says something, a curse or a swear or an exclamation. Whatever, he sounds shocked and horrified and the photo album bursts into flame.
Amy drops it, and the man says, “I’m sorry … I didn’t … ”
Some sense finally coming back to her, Amy begins to stamp out the fire with her foot. The people in the pictures … their families will need to know.
When the last of the flames are out she backs up — right into Stranger Guy’s chest. He feels weird, too hard. She’s in shock. Obviously. He brings a hand to her shoulder; it is warm and comforting and normal.