The Gospel of Loki (27 page)

LESSON 1

Heidi

Seriously. That thing I told you in Book about never trusting anyone? That.

Lokabrenna

A
ND SO
I
TURNED MY COAT AGAIN
. What choice did I have? The Old Man had abandoned me. The Worlds had unleashed their dogs on me. And here was the Sorceress, Gullveig-Heid, offering me a chance to strike back and to regain my place in Chaos . . .

I would have been a fool to refuse. Anyone would have taken the deal. Heidi was powerful, and she wanted revenge, especially on those Vanir who had betrayed her by allying themselves with Odin. Technically, I was the enemy, but I was counting on the fact that my desertion from Asgard would find favour in her eyes. And anyway, I was star-struck. This was the legendary Gullveig-Heid, first mistress of the runes, for whom I’d searched the Worlds in vain since Odin had first tricked me into taking corporeal Aspect.

And the first thing I needed her to do was to release that corporeal Aspect, currently suffering torment in a cave by the River Dream. So I took what she offered me, without reading much of the small print. And awakening now from the dream
state from which she had recruited me, I was so relieved to find myself free of Snakey, the mixing bowl, the chaise-longue rock and my rune-inscribed chains that I never thought to ask her for specific details of – for instance – just
what
had happened to Sigyn, or how I was to be reintroduced into Chaos’s fiery fold. Turns out that wasn’t the plan at all, but I imagine you’ve already guessed that. Used and betrayed by one set of friends, I was soon to find myself in virtually the same position with my shiny new demon companions.

In my defence, however, I was experiencing a number of exhilarating new sensations that had temporarily robbed me of my suspicion. Overwhelming gratitude; relief; release; the ecstasy of rubbing my eyes; the joy of drinking water without getting a faceful of venom; my reintroduction to food and drink (though I suspected cake would be off the menu for ever); the astonishing pleasures of bathing – first in cold water, then in warm, then in a multitude of different soaps, oils and various bath products.

Then there was Heidi – alluring, and with a demon’s ability to take on any Aspect she (or I) most desired. Now she was golden from head to foot; a ring on every finger; eyes like those of a lynx and hair like waterfalls and rainbows. Tattooed all over in runes of gold, from her fingertips to the soles of her feet, sleek and lithe and wild and perverse and, like Angie of Iron-wood, curiously attracted to men with red hair.

So shoot me. I took advantage. Not the wisest move, I’ll admit, especially after what happened with Angie, but I’d been underground too long to deny myself the pleasure of a little harmless dalliance. Demon sex was a pleasure I hadn’t had for a long time, and now I revelled in it again, as Order and Chaos prepared for war, burning up the winter nights in the fires of our passion.

Meanwhile, on my rock in World Below, a surrogate, an ephemeron made from runes and glamours, suffered torment in my place – just in case Skadi or one of the others came along to
check on how I was doing. The ephemeron was not alive in any real sense of the word. It was simply an assemblage of thoughts and images selected by Heidi during my imprisonment, then given just enough substance – not difficult, so near to Dream – to deceive the eyes of the casual observer. Closer investigation, of course, would reveal the deception, but soon that wouldn’t matter. War was coming; and before long the Aesir would have more on their hands than dealing with Yours Truly.

The plan was in three stages. One: preparation. Two: subjugation. Three: confrontation. Nice and clean. The first (and rather tedious) stage was actually almost complete, which meant that when I joined Gullveig’s camp, the fun was just about to begin.

And it
was
fun – Wildfire, unleashed, bigger and badder than ever. Heidi and I had set up camp at the edge of Ironwood, where we could observe Bif-rost unseen. It was safe; there was plenty of game, and the river Gunnthrà that ran through the wood led straight down into World Below, providing a conduit for all kinds of beings to enter the Worlds through the River Dream.

This was the place from which our army would come, led by Heidi’s incantations. Beings of all kinds would be summoned there, from the fears and dreams and tears of the Folk. You see, the human race had become a reservoir of power. Unsuspected by the gods, who still viewed them as little more than a fanbase, the Folk had an almost inexhaustible capacity to dream; to imagine; to conjure up the most intricate, the most explicit, the most enduring of fantasies – all of which the Sorceress could weave into the makings of the most advanced army the Worlds had ever known.

This was what she’d been doing during the years that I had searched for her. Living half in and half out of Dream, she knew how to surf its waters; how to coax them with her mind; how to ride the rapids that would have destroyed a lesser being. Gullveig-Heid was the most powerful manipulator of dreams
that the Worlds had ever known, and it was through Dream that she planned to bring about the subjugation of the Worlds.

Of course, I’d be a key part of that. I knew Asgard’s defences. I had lived with the gods for so long that I knew all their weaknesses, both strategic and personal. For instance, I knew that if we introduced certain elements into the fray (the World Serpent, or the Fenris Wolf, for instance), then members of Asgard’s key personnel could be counted upon to drop everything, to leave their position, however strategically valuable, and to confront the enemy on whatever ground we chose. Timing is so important. And we had the advantage there;
we
could choose when the war would start, and how it would continue.

Oh, she’d been planning this for decades. I’d thought
my
dreams of vengeance grandiose, but next to hers mine were just the fleeting dreams of a sleeping cat. Gullveig had it all worked out: over the years she had entered the dreams of Ice Folk and Rock Folk, manipulating their chieftains; whispering hatred into their ears so that now they were almost ready to strike. She had entered the dreams of the insane; the murderous; the unhappy; the lost. Now all were converging on Ironwood – Ice Folk; Rock Folk; Tunnel Folk from underground; werewolves and witches and half-blood demons and bastard Firefolk from whatever little empire they’d managed to build during the reign of Order – while the unsuspecting Folk, Odin’s beloved wor-shippers, assembled their warriors in the foothills and plains of Inland, driven by instincts as powerful as those of a nest of wild bees, swarming under the influence of some new, rapacious Queen . . .

Of course I was dazzled. Who wouldn’t be? She was the golden Queen; I was the King. Of course, a beehive
has
no king, but I wasn’t exactly following logic at the time. Heidi showered me with praise; worshipped me with her body; lavished me with extravagant gifts and placed me on a fire-ship at the head of a battle fleet that would launch, not across the One Sea, but through Dream, Death and Damnation itself.

That fire-ship. It was beautiful. Slim as a sword, and as deadly, it could glide through anything – air, or stone, or water. Its sail was like St Sepulchre’s Fire; its skeleton crew was tireless. (And by ‘skeleton crew’ I mean a crew of actual skeletons, coaxed into life by a cantrip of
Naudr
and press-ganged into my service.) And when I was tired of playing with it, I could fold it up like a pocket knife and carry it wherever I went, or moor it in Dream, where it would wait patiently to be summoned.

As for the rest of my demon fleet, these were not
ships
, precisely. Instead they were
vessels
for my army, a motley assemblage of half-bloods, renegade demons, the undead and assorted ephemeral creatures, all summoned by Heidi through Dream and sworn to my allegiance. The creatures called me General and worshipped me in their slavish way, as I cavorted with Heidi, eating venison, drinking mead and looking forward to Ragnarók and the End of Everything.

Now comes the final reckoning.
Now come the folk of Netherworld.
Now comes the dragon of darkness, Death—

This was the only part of the deal that caused me any anxiety. The Dragon of Darkness – aka Lord Surt – finally taking a physical Aspect to enter the Worlds and to cleanse them of that stubborn intruder, Life. Not what you’d call a happy thought. Heidi’s assurances that, when the time came, he would recognize our role in the triumph of Chaos and take us back into the primal Fire all made perfect sense – at least, whenever she was around. When I was alone, I had a tendency to feel rather less certain about the whole thing. I wasn’t even entirely certain that I
wanted
to go back permanently to my primary Aspect. I’d found too many things to enjoy in this corrupt, confusing world of conflict and sensations. I’d realized that one of the things I enjoyed most was challenging Order and breaking rules – and how in the Worlds could I do that if there was no Order to
challenge? Even assuming that it was possible that I could be taken back into the heart of Chaos, that my radically altered being could even survive in that element . . .

Did I really
want
that? Had I
ever
wanted it?

Still, to Hel with the future. The present was well worth enjoying. This was the life, I told myself; wine, women, a vehicle suited to my personal requirements and a chance to thumb my nose at the gods. War was trembling in the air like a breath of springtime, and I could feel the Chaos in me leaping up to greet it. What if Surt
was
on his way? Eat, drink and be merry, I thought, for who knows what tomorrow will bring?

All right. Call it denial. I was enjoying myself at last. For the first time, I was a real god, and maybe – just maybe – it went to my head. But can you blame me, after all, with everything I’d been through? I was in my element. I had my fire-ship, Gullveig-Heid and an army of fanatical half-demon worshippers. What more could I want? I thought. What could possibly go wrong?

LESSON 2

Angie

One woman; trouble. Two women – Chaos.

Lokabrenna

A
CCORDING TO THE ORACLE
, it all happened in only a few stanzas. In fact it took months for Asgard’s folk to meet our folk in battle. During that time, the General barricaded himself inside, conferring with Mimir’s Head and holding endless talks with his people, as my new-found allies and I continued to set the stage for the invasion of the Middle Worlds and its subjugation, an inch at a time.

The first hint of trouble came about a month before our final campaign. We had a thousand fire-ships waiting to attack through Dream. To the north of Ironwood, the Ice People awaited our call, living under deerskin tents; and the Rock Folk had taken the eastern side, adopting as their refuge a labyrinth of limestone caves at the foot of the mountains. Meanwhile, the Folk were assembling; little bands of warriors, at first – no more than a few hundred at a time, armed with swords and axes and shields and sometimes just farm implements – drifting in towards the south-west. There had been a few skirmishes, but nothing more. The Folk were still uncertain. Rumours of an impending war; omens in the winter sky;
nightmares; sudden deaths; ominous flights of migratory birds – all premonitions of bad things to come for Mankind and the Middle Worlds.

It was rumoured that Angrboda was in hiding somewhere in Ironwood, leading a pack of werewolves that preyed on the Folk that were gathering in numbers on the outskirts of the forest. I didn’t investigate the rumours. Angie wasn’t my biggest fan, not after the way the gods had dealt with Fenris, and I was in no hurry to introduce her to Heidi.

That’s why when she arrived one night, unannounced, demanding to see me, I felt a shiver of apprehension. I was in my tent; a marquee rather bigger than Odin’s hall, inscribed all over with fire-runes, draped in silk and tapestry and carpeted with wolf skins. I was just opening a bottle of wine and listening to the sounds of the night when in she came, looking warlike, followed by the harassed-looking demon guard I’d posted to avoid just such encounters as this.

‘I’m sorry, General,’ said the guard. ‘She just—’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. When the Witch of Ironwood comes to pay a visit, good luck to the poor idiot who shows her to the waiting room. I dismissed the guard with an absent wave.

‘Angie! Love of my life!’ I said.

The Witch of Ironwood has always favoured a youthful, innocent Aspect quite out of line with her true character, which was as perverse as they come, and today she looked about sixteen, fetchingly clad in black leather; wide-eyed under a thick line of kohl; dreadlocks plaited with silver thread. Most sixteen-year-olds wouldn’t have been carrying a pair of perfectly matched double-bladed swords, curved as sweet as a baby’s smile and practically singing with sharpness – but then, Angie was never typical.

‘Is it my birthday?’ I enquired.

She ignored that and instead looked around with interest at my quarters. Noting the silken draperies, the embroidered cushions on the ground, the candles, the furs, the food and
drink, she raised a bejewelled eyebrow.

‘I suppose you think you’ve got it made,’ she said, sitting down on a cushion. ‘All this and the prospect of carnage, too. You must be in hog’s heaven.’

I smiled at her. ‘What’s wrong with that? I’ve had an Age of pain, discomfort, humiliation and thwarted desire. I thought perhaps it might be time to experience some of the nicer sensations before the Worlds come to an end.’

‘And
then
what?’ Angie said. ‘You think Chaos will take you back after everything you’ve done?’

I had to admit she had me there. There’s a special antechamber of Dream reserved for renegade demons, and I wasn’t in a hurry to see it for myself.

I said: ‘Maybe, maybe not. In any case, I’m not planning to die. In fact, I have it on good authority that I’m going to bring down Asgard.’

‘Good authority? You mean the Oracle,’ said Angie, with a curl of the lip.

‘It hasn’t been wrong yet,’ I said.

‘But it hasn’t told you
everything.’
Angie helped herself to wine. ‘And neither has your new friend, that little madam Gullveig-Heid.’

Ah. I thought it might come to that.

‘Feeling jealous, are we?’ I said.

‘Not on your life,’ said Angie. ‘I’m only keeping in touch with you for the sake of the children.
Way
to look after our son, by the way. I let you have him for the weekend and before I know it he’s chained underground, awaiting Last Times and stinking of mead.’

‘Ah. That.’

‘Yes.
That
. If you hadn’t messed things up, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I wouldn’t be joining forces with Pandaemonium’s most poisonous blonde.’

‘You’re joining forces with Heidi?’ I said. Well, I could see the advantages. Angie was the mother of Hel, which made her
a force to be reckoned with. But why would Angie agree to the deal? ‘Ah. Fenris.’ It all made sense. ‘So, Heidi promised to free him, did she? In exchange for your oath?’

She sniffed. ‘I had no choice. He’s my son. Besides, she freed
you
, didn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘That
was nice. So what does she want?’

‘The usual. To bring down the gods, take over the Worlds, get bloody satisfaction. In fact, I’ve rarely met a woman whose tastes and ambitions were closer to mine – except perhaps for you, my dear.’

‘Quite the philanthropist, in fact,’ said Angie.

‘Well, I wouldn’t go
that
far,’ I said. ‘But Heidi’s been very good to me.’

‘And she’s given you no cause to believe she might not be telling you everything?’

‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘In fact, her general lack of guile and dishonesty may be the only flaw I can find in an otherwise perfect package.’

Angie sniffed. ‘What about your wife?’

‘My
wife
? What about her?’

Good question
, I thought. In fact, it was the first time in months that I’d remembered Sigyn. I know it sounds bad. But I never pretended to be the ideal husband, or anything. Besides, when you’re King of the Worlds, facing Last Times and surrounded by adoring lackeys and loose women, you tend to have more on your mind than flannelette nighties and fruitcake. But now Angie came to mention it, I realized that I’d never asked just what had become of my loving spouse when I’d been rescued from World Below, or indeed why she hadn’t tried to pursue me into Ironwood with promises of apple pie.

‘Because they bumped her,’ Angie said, answering the question.

‘What?’

‘Obviously, your little friend didn’t want her reporting
home. Quicker and far more efficient to simply get her out of the way.’ She looked at me. ‘Are you all right? You’re suddenly looking kind of sick.’

‘I’m just fine,’ I told her.

And I was – it was simply that it had come as a surprise. The thought that Sigyn was really dead – sweet, harmless Sigyn; undoubtedly mad, with her passion for furry animals and her almost infinite capacity for baby-talk – was, like her fruitcake, almost impossible to digest. And the knowledge that Heidi had ordered her death without as much as a second thought, or even a word to Yours Truly . . .

‘Are you sure you’re fine?’ Angie said. ‘For a minute there I thought perhaps you were feeling responsible.’

I shook my head, which at that moment didn’t feel entirely clear.

It was absurd, I told myself. After all, we were planning the End of the Worlds; Ragnarók; the Twilight of the Popular Crowd. What did I
think
would happen when Asgard fell? That all the survivors would kiss and make up over tea and little sandwiches? Of
course
the gods were going to die. If I was lucky, I might not be among them. But to succumb to sentiment at such a time as this was wholly inappropriate. And as for feeling responsible . . .

‘You can’t make a fruitcake without breaking eggs. I mean – you can’t make an
omelette
.’

‘What?’ Angie said.

I tried again. ‘Collateral damage, that’s what it was. Choose your own cliché. Whatever. In any case, it wasn’t my fault.’

‘That goes without saying,’ said Angie.

‘So why tell me at all?’ I said.

She gave that little-girl smile of hers. ‘You may think Gullveig needs you,’ she said. ‘But as soon as your usefulness runs out, you’ll be on the pile like the rest of them. I don’t care if you trust me or not. Just don’t go turning your back on her.’

When Angie had gone, I thought for some time about what
she’d said. Perhaps she was right, I told myself. Perhaps I hadn’t been careful enough in my dealings with Heidi. Perhaps I’d let my pursuit of physical pleasures as well as my desire for revenge get in the way of self-interest. After all, what did I really know about her? What did she know of the Oracle? And what kind of deal, if any, did she have going with Chaos?

I went back to the prophecy. It wasn’t much help. Heidi wasn’t mentioned by name, although I remembered this couplet:

In Ironwood, the Witch awaits.

The Fenris wolf will have his day.

At first, because of the reference to Fenny, I’d assumed that the Witch was Angie. But now I began to ask myself if Heidi wasn’t a better fit. If so, what was she waiting for?

Of course, I had no answers. All I had was the prophecy and Angie’s unfounded suspicions – which could have been due to jealousy, or simple malice, who could tell?

And so I went on with business, telling myself I could always get out if things started to smell bad. But by the time I realized how, once more, I’d been manipulated, there was nothing left to do but run across the burning bridge towards whatever awaited me . . .