Of Utgardar, the Castle between the Worlds, and Its Master, part 3

Loki dipped his nose into a goblet of something soothingly alcoholic. The hall was bustling with life, helpfully distracting him. Some people were congregating to play a dice game on one side; a group around Surt started their own eating competition, which was turning by the moment into more of a drinking competition. Most of the guests had their armour off by this time, finding it too hot, their weapons forgotten and lying scattered around the room. Several men and women picked up instruments and started to play a series of fast-paced songs with appropriately impertinent lyrics.

Thor and Thjalfi started eating moodily while Loki sipped his drink, all with different degrees of scowls on their faces. However, it was difficult to resist the atmosphere, and after Loki thoroughly explained to Thor what had been done to him, he relaxed a bit and the three of them started to make quips at each other, enjoying the rather excellent selection of alcohol. Some of the other guests braved conversation and within half an hour Loki's pipe, practically bending from the amount of hemp he'd stuffed into it, was travelling between seven people on their side of the table, while Thjalfi got some of them to teach him a Jötunn card game. Loki knew for a fact that Thjalfi had already mastered that game, seeing how it was Loki who had taught it to him in the first place. The little rabbit would have his fellow players down to their bare backs by the end of the evening. Thor, who was demonstrably a dismal gambler, got into a strangely technical discussion with a young Jötunn man who was fascinated with ship building. Loki knew that Thor had a mind for woodwork, but not that he could talk so convincingly about it and stored the information away for when he next needed to make fun of the man.

It was just a gathering of merry people, these were just happy moments of chance encounters, and this was just another mead hall. Loki desperately wanted to believe that, just for a while. If he wished for it hard enough, the world outside may vanish. This was the main attraction of the Outlands; also their greatest peril. Utgarda had chosen to distance himself from everything, be a master in a place that could not be governed, and therefore put himself out of the reach of petty spite, strife and warmongering. Loki had spent many months here, sometimes with his brothers, sometimes without them. Always with his mother. Because Utgarda did indeed love his mother since she was a little girl, and he called her Nal, the Needle, as was his privilege. Loki called him Uncle not because he was, but because he was the closest thing he had to one. There were indeed plenty of happy memories he had in connection to this hall. There were plenty of other ones too, however.

Loki looked over to where Utgarda was sitting, a delicate redhead perched on his lap while he spoke to some people. He'd told Thor Utgarda was capricious and dangerous, but it could be he was the most constant thing there was, the most safe, for he was the way he was now since the day Loki had met him, never changing with the times. Never changing in spite of the times, in fact. Perhaps it was because he had already been through one destruction of the world and ever since then he could let go of this and any other one much more easily. As easily as breathing, it seemed to Loki.

Thjalfi won his first game, endearing himself to his fellow gamblers who were impressed by his quick wit. In the meanwhile, Thor had found that the people of the Outlands had heard a corrupted version of his brief engagement to Thrym and started to make awkward explanations that concealed more than they revealed. Loki felt a nasty smile spread over his face. Thor saw it and tried to quickly change the subject but to no avail. Loki began a long, detailed account of Thor's experiences as a woman until the crowd was buckling over with laughter.

"Oh, I heard that story," came a happy voice. It was Utgarda, standing over their table, wide smile on his face. The young Jötnar picked up their drinks and took their conversations, as well as Thjalfi, elsewhere without Utgarda having said a single word to them. It was unobtrusive but definite. Utgarda would speak to his two special guests alone.

He pulled a vacated chair and sat opposite them, one foot up to his chin, his back to the room. "Was everything explained to you, Asa-Thor?"

"More or less," Thor said. His voice was careful as he deliberately sobered up expecting a new trap.

"You drank the sea, stood your ground against Old Age and almost lifted the Midgard Serpent," Utgarda bequeath Loki an ironic nod. "Not at all bad for one day, I would think."

Thor mulled it over and asked, "And how did you survive getting hit in the head with Mjölnir?"

"I redirected the blows," Utgarda answered simply. "You'll see the craters on your return journey, I expect. It was warping magic, Thunder Bearer, has Little Cousin never explained it to you?"
"I tried," Loki commented.

"We don't use magic that much," Thor said. He had elected not to say something more impertinent, like "we have no use for such tricks" but his tone implied it.

"But you do," Utgarda said. "You use your own brand of it."

"That's different.

"Different, yes, that's what I said," Utgarda shrugged. "Nevertheless, the Sigfödr uses this type of magic as well."
Thor shrugged. "That's the Sigfödr."

"Not this type of magic, no," Loki put in.

Utgarda cocked his head at him, a complex smile on his face. "What did you see tonight, Little Cousin?"
"Something I will not see ever again, I hope."

"You would not learn?"
"I-," Loki stuttered. "I would…"

He tried to settle his thoughts. It was a test; Utgarda was not offering to teach him the new magic. But if he did, would Loki want to know it? The ability to recreate the characteristics of something, even something abstract, a concept, a phenomenon, and bind it onto flesh? The idea horrified him. His rational mind told him it was better not to know it, better not to pour himself that poisonous drink. Yet his quivering belly shouted, give it to me!

Did he want to have that power? Oh, yes! Like he wanted his next drink, his next meal; like he wanted to feel a woman again, like he wanted to continue breathing.

"I want it. Because I want it," he said very carefully. "I would not trust myself with it. Give it to me when I would no longer ask for it."

While Thor condensed his face into a confused expression, Utgarda smirked knowingly. "Then you truly are less hungry than you were before. Well done again, Little Cousin. You are passing all my little tests today. Tell me, how did you know me as Skrymir?"

"You interfered with my sight, so I knew you were someone who knew what they were doing. But it occurred to me it may in fact be you when you pulled out the dried fruit."

"The fruit?" Thor and Utgarda both asked at the same time.

"You love sweet things," Loki said, nodding to Utgarda's cup, filled even now to the brim with honey brandy.

Utgarda laughed loudly, and for a change without undertones. "The fucking fruit, ha!"

"Speaking of," Thor put in. "What did you do with that bag? That was sealed with magic as well, wasn't it?"
Utgarda stared at him a while. "No," he whispered. "No, Asa-Thor. That was just a bag of dried fruit."

"But, but-," Thor mumbled while Loki and Utgarda giggled at him. "But why did you do all of this anyway? Why humiliate us, why fucking-"

"To teach you."
"About magic?"
"About how dangerous it is to go to an opponent expecting them to pit themselves against your strengths, instead of play you off against their own," said Utgarda slowly. "I could no more survive a blow from Mjölnir than I could bottle the night sky. That is, unless I change the rules of the game. That was your lesson, Thor-Thor-Son-of-Odin."

"And what was mine?" asked Loki.

"I am still deciding that, Little Cousin," whispered Utgarda. "You have proven to me you have become wiser. Perhaps I will not dare teach you anything."

Loki raised his glass in an ironic salute and they both drank the contents. The mead hall was rowdier than ever before. As the three of them drank in ponderous silence and Loki filled his pipe once more, they observed the goings-on. Thjalfi was with the serious gamblers now and skinning them alive by the look of it. The musicians were seated on a bench, still playing hard even though they were all sweaty and breathless. Some people have come out into the middle of the hall to dance with more or less dignity. The striking brunette was among them, laughing and spinning around, her hair catching golden glints from the fire.

"The fine leaf, is it, Little Cousin?" Utgarda inquired.

"It is," Loki nodded, lighting the pipe and passing it to him.

Utgarda took a few mouthfuls and held his breath, giving the pipe over to Thor.

"And this is how we all become friends, is it not, Thor-Thor-Son-of-Odin?"

"We would be, if you would just call me Thor, Lord of the Outlands," Thor smiled sharply.

"Thor, Lord of the Outlands?" Utgarda quirked his eyebrows. "You would depose me?"

Thor accompanied his sigh with a defeated giggle.

"We call him Thrym's Bride nowadays," Loki put in, exhaling smoke.

Thor flicked him on the temple. "As you say, Horse Mother."

Utgarda laughed at both of them. "But I have never seen you like this, Little Cousin. Do you know, Asa-Thor, that Laufeyjarson never made friends very easily despite all of his charm?"

"I would think it was because of his charm that he couldn't make friends," commented Thor. "His very particular charm."

"It's an acquired taste," Loki mumbled.

"He rarely let people acquire it. They were allowed only as far as Little Cousin wanted them to venture, no further," said Utgarda. "To see him thus in the company of one of the Aesir, who would have guessed it back in the old days?"

Loki stared up at Utgarda, careful of what he might say next. Thor too became tense. He set down his cup and said, "Stranger things have been known to happen. Rarely those with better outcomes."

Utgarda let his eyebrows climb up and said, "Stranger things, granted. You coming to my hall may be one of them."

"You turning out to be Lord of the Outlands another," Thor said.

Utgarda's expression was one of honest surprised. "Why is that so strange?"

Thor shrugged. "You seem… young."

"Do you truly believe my appearance has anything to do with my age?" inquired Utgarda, all of his features sharpening, as if his concentrated intelligence was bringing them to a point. "Or his for that matter?" he nodded towards Loki.

"I know you can change at will…" Thor started insecurely.

"Not all of us," Loki commented.

"The appearance is our magic, and our youth is our magic. But not a trick," Utgarda told Thor. "Have you ever wondered, Thor-Thor-Son-of-Odin, why Little Cousin does not partake in the eating of Idunn's apples?"

Thor shrugged. "He does not need them."

"Why?" Utgarda asked, leaning closer, a penetrating look in his eyes. "Or put this way, how long do you think Jötnar live?"

Thor's eyebrows went down even further on his face, trying to piece the conversation together, trying to think through the inebriation. Loki drank his beer, watching Utgarda carefully.

"As long as they can, Odinson," Utgarda answered. "As long as they want to, as long as there is something to live for. A passion, a promise. A curiosity," he nodded to Loki and added in a lower voice. "An anger." The word rang ominously, hanging for a moment between them until Utgarda went on, "Jötnar live as long as they have the will for it, because will and life used to be one and the same back in the beginning. You must take the will if you wish to kill us."

"We die in battle just like any other creature, or poisoned, or stabbed in the back," Loki said slowly.

"A defeat is a defeat of the will no matter by what method it was dealt. If it was dealt properly."

Thor thought it over seriously. Loki could tell by the way his furrowed brow almost touched the edge of his goblet while he drank. "So why did that guy want the apples, Skadi's father?"

"To blackmail you," Loki said quickly, the half-truth he had told so many times it became a knee-jerk response.

Utgarda cocked his head, another testing smile on his face. "It was Little Cousin that wanted them," he mouthed slowly and deliberately, savouring Loki's darkening expression.

"What?" asked Thor.

"To reignite will, and incite life," Utgarda said. He caressed the border of his glass. The pipe lay forgotten on the table between them. "But that plan went wrong, did it not, Little Cousin?"

"It went very badly wrong," growled Loki quietly. "And I fixed my mistake."

"What did you want the apples for?" Thor inquired, turning towards him.

"For my wife," Loki said.

"Sigyn?"

"No, you dumb fuck. My first wife."

Utgarda nodded. "Angrboda had given up the will, and decided she would sleep. Little Cousin was not ready to grant her rest. So he tried to get Idunn to share her apples with his Iron-born lover. He needed help with his plan, though. And the help proved…"

"Unhelpful," Loki finished the sentence.

"I did not know that story," Thor commented, forehead grooved.

Utgarda took a sip of his drink. "I'll wager there are plenty of stories Little Cousin hadn't told you about himself."

"Not as many as you make it out to be," Loki said.

"He's always refused to tell me anything about his first wife," Thor put in demurely, dipping his nose into his ale once again.

"And you've never dared to ask about his children?" said Utgarda, his peppermint coloured eyes glinting yellow and burrowing into Thor, but before Thor could say anything in response, the look softened. "Never mind, I'll tell you about Angrboda. What would you know?"

Thor thought it over, gazing at Loki. "What did she look like?"

Loki grunted, "That's your big questions about my wife, Ennilang? What she looked like? Fuck, I would've told you that."

Utgarda laughed. "Dark haired, fierce, you'd like her. A bit like Jarnsaxa, in fact."

"Who?" Thor asked.

"The girl at my table you'd been boning long-distance for the last hour, Thor-Thor-Son-of-Odin," Utgarda said, turning around to point at the azure-eyed brunette.

"I wasn't-," Thor began to stutter, but Loki was faster, setting down his drink in outrage. "She looked nothing like her!"

Utgarda waved his hand above his head and ignored him. "Angrboda was a sorceress, born in Jarnvid. The Iron Wood, I believe you passed it, yes? But not through it. Angrboda used to come to court here, which is where Little Cousin met her. She knew the Old Script and Loki went to her to learn it."

"So he went to seduce her and trick her secrets out of her?" Thor surmised with a smirk at Loki.

"Pretty much," nodded Utgarda. "But Angrboda was not the sort who gave secrets up for a little screwing."

"There was nothing little about our screwing," Loki said, showing his teeth to Utgarda. "And I never expected to trick anything out of her. She just taught me what she would teach me when I asked her to. Anything else you want to know, Goat Master?"

Thor obviously enjoyed having Loki grilled for a change. A mischievous look on his face, he purred, "How did she like to be fucked?"

"Well," Loki snarled at him. "And by me."

"Little Cousin gets prickly when you touch his heart, didn't you know, Thor-Thor-Son-of-Odin?" snickered Utgarda.

"I did," Thor nodded. "But he forgives if you do it gently."

"Maybe he forgives you…"

Thor quirked an eyebrow at that remark, took a gulp of his drink and fixed Utgarda. His voice was strangely soft and coy. "And are you truly not his father?"

"Pardon?" Utgarda said.

"Is it truly not you who sired him, as he keeps telling us?" Thor repeated.

For a moment, Loki was ready to grab him and make a run for it for there was a fleeting shadow on Utgarda's face, so brief he doubted Thor even saw it. Utgarda ran his little finger across his lower lip but then the smile came back, even if it was still quite sharp around the edges. "No. I am not," he said, little finger feeling its way around the words. "All of Nal's children were Farbauti's children."

"Very well," Thor nodded, satisfied that he'd made the hall-master uncomfortable, a justified retaliation for that entire day.

Apparently, Utgarda took it to be justified as well for his face went back to his usual whimsical softness and youth. All the penetrating, needling sharpness was gone and Loki understood this to mean their interview was over for the time.

Utgarda relit Loki's pipe, then for the first time noticed what it was made of. He pursed his lips appreciatively and started handling it with a bit more respect, taking a drag and passing it to its owner. Exhaling, he turned back to look at the room of dancers, gamblers, drunkards and all the other misfits who preferred a simple life in a chaotic world rather than a difficult one in an ordered world. As the thought occurred to Loki, he sat back into his chair in wonderment. Why had he never made that trade? Not now – now it was impossible, there was too much anchoring him to what lay beyond the grasslands. But before, when he had no wives, no children, no blood-brothers; back when Utgarda offered it.

Hunger. It was the hunger.

"She is pretty, though, isn't she?" Utgarda mumbled for Thor was staring at the brunette, Jarnsaxa, again. "Lovely, luscious, lascivious hair, makes you want to wrap yourself up in it."

"Hmm," Thor said weakly.

"Eyes like the warm seas. Lovely complexion, too," Utgarda went on. "Fucks like an eel."

Thor spluttered and became slightly redder in the face. "Oh."

Loki chuckled. "An eel? Might have to try that out."

"You wouldn't steal your friend's fire like that, would you, Little Cousin?"

"As soon as look at him," Loki said and got up from the table to join the group that Jarnsaxa was momentarily sitting down with, fanning herself. Thor waited but a heartbeat before rising to follow. They heard Utgarda laugh after them. It didn't matter. For a while at least they would drink, dance, fuck and fall over exhausted. The ordered world, so very disorderly with its colliding rules and horrific complexity, would wait for them when they were done.

Hunger, he had learned a lesson about hunger.

All the dramatic episodes and characters here are copyright of traditional Scandinavian and Icelandic tales, as found in the Poetic and Prose Edda, and some other sources. However, some are reinterpreted or changed slightly to suit my dark purpose. I encourage any of you who are interested in what the original story might have been, or how it pertains to what I have written here, to either ask me directly or research online.

Having said that, it shouldn't matter too much whether or not you are an expert on Norse mythology or not; everything gets explained eventually. I hope.

Except in some cases in which an alternate spelling is more common, I use John Lindow's guide to Norse mythology for names of people and places.