Loki (9 page)

Yggdrasil, despite its mass, did not appear completely solid. He could see through it at times, and it pulsed from corporeal to transient, fading in and out as though it could not decide if it wanted to exist or not. He felt the way he imagined a gnat might feel when standing at the foot of a mountain. He could not even comprehend its immensity, but he felt waves of power and life emanating from it.

The grain of its wood where exposed by torn bark was wider than the front gates of Asgard. There was depth there as well. He could walk into the channeled grain of the tree and follow a path into Yggdrasil itself. Despite its appearance it felt solid, and his fingers tingled when he touched it, as if energy was being released. He stepped into the tree, plunging into the depths of the oldest and largest thing to ever exist.

He was engulfed in blackness and lost all sense of direction and time. The only thing he was aware of—other than himself—was an oppressive presence that pervaded his body, like a deep, thrumming heartbeat, the consciousness of a being that had existed since the dawn of time. It grew and threatened to overwhelm him, saturating each of his senses to the point where he could not tell where he ended and the entity began.

And then it was gone.

He had no idea how much time had passed while he hovered in nothingness, but it had seemed as if time had been suspended. An instant had lasted an eternity. With difficulty, he put it out of his mind, forcing himself to contemplate the task and forget the pervasiveness of Yggdrasil's consciousness. It was not as difficult as he would have thought to do, for as he got to his feet he found that the memories and feelings were fading as quickly as if they were dreams.

The last remnants of the experience slipping away, he took in his surroundings. He stood on the edge of an enormous cavern. He looked up and saw bright stars dot the skyscape above him. He wondered if he were still inside the tree at all, or if he had been taken someplace else. The ground was covered by a fine mist which swirled slowly around a central point in the distance.

The mist was thick at his feet and barely moved as he walked through it. As he got closer to the center he could see that the mist emanated from a large hole that stretched a stone’s throw from one side to the other. Whispered voices surrounded him as he stepped closer to what he realized must be the Well of Urd. He peered over the edge, but his eyes could not pierce its depths.

The voices were disembodied and faint, a jumbled mess of barely recognized words and phrases, although he would occasionally catch bits that sounded familiar. There were different tones and emotions in the voices; he could hear sorrow and confusion, joy and ecstasy, anger and fury. He looked around him, but saw no one. He walked carefully around the well.

He paused when the mist stirred. Tendrils rose up slowly, forming a vaguely human shape in front of him. It was a ghostly woman, insubstantial and incomplete, the connections between body parts only vague or suggested. Two other similar shapes formed on either side.

“
Child of chaos . . .”

“
Harbinger of twilight . . .”

“
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 . . .”

“
answer . . .”

“
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.