The Hangman's Hands

Chapter 28: Such Lost Creatures


Concealing the coordinate controller was easy: it vanished into a pocket of Loki's overcoat without a ripple. Unfortunately, it was also fragile. Fine glass covered the top surface of the ring, leaving the hole in the middle free. He would have to be careful. If he'd had his magic he could have simply hidden it safely away in a pocket of space, beyond any risk of jostling or crushing. That it was necessary to think about so mundane a concern seemed ludicrous.

He didn't wait for Thanos to summon him, but slept until he was rested and dressed immaculately and went to the courtyard before the appointed time of his own accord. He stood where he did not have to see the gallows and steeled himself, whetting his lies like blades. Time for Thanos to dance on his strings.

Night arrived. The stars blinked as if awaking from sleep as the sun made way for them. He knew when Thanos came not from any sound but from the feeling of being watched.

He turned to find the usurper on his throne, and Thor as always chained by his side. Thanos inhabited Odin's seat so thoroughly that Loki could scarcely remember how it had looked before. Thor's beard was wild and he had grown thinner, stripped down like a feral animal; almost one would not have guessed that he was a prince. The past had receded out of reach. There was only this nightmare Asgard and the nightmare Loki within it.

"How fare your designs, Loki?" Thanos said. "Tell me what you have brought me!"

Loki walked forward, swinging the ceremonial spear he always carried during Thanos' sacrifices. It was the same one Sif had died holding. "I bring you the greatest army in the Nine Realms," he said.

Thor's head snapped up. "Loki, no!"

Excellent. Thanos knew better than to trust Loki's words, but he must also know by now that Thor possessed no skill at deceit. The sincerity of Thor's despair would convince him as no amount of honeyed lies ever could.

"Oh, yes," Loki said. He let a slow, cruel smile play over his lips. "My brother tried to hide it from me when he held me captive on Earth. But the journey to Asgard he demanded I undertake with him was obviously a scouting mission. I am certain he assembled an army of his allies on Earth, and with the help of the divining instruments in the observatory, I've determined its location."

"He is lying!" Thor protested. "This is a trick!"

"No doubt he is," Thanos said, his flashing eyes alight with interest. "But I will hear more of this army."

Loki stopped and spread his hands. "The greatest warriors of Jotunheim, an immortal race once almost equal to the Asgardians. And the greatest warriors of Midgard, some of whom are quite... unusual. As I mentioned to the Other in my reports."

"Yes," Thanos said. "I recall that they defeated you."

Loki feigned a spasm of annoyance. "All the more reason to send them to Lady Death. Odinson gathered them together to retake Asgard from you. They are camped in the garden in the middle of the city where I opened the portal. Open another one there and they'll be eager to fight. You can kill them all at once. Has Mistress Death ever seen so much excellence eradicated so quickly, so gracefully? She won't be able to help being impressed."

Thor glared at him, shaking his head in denial. "I trusted you. Fool that I am, I trusted you in spite of everything you've done. How can you betray us now? Do you even know whose side you're on anymore?"

The words pierced him cruelly. It was necessary – it was necessary. But how he longed to defend himself, to change the look on Thor's face from horror back to love. If they survived, if anyone would listen, perhaps he could. Push on; he must forge ahead now and show no sign of faltering.

"Mine," he said. "I am on my side. Your human friends are no loss to me."

"You couldn't defeat them yourself, so you hide behind this monster." Thor's eyes shone with contempt and disappointment.

Thanos grinned ferociously and snapped Thor's chain, bringing him to his knees. "It pains you, Odinson, to see your comrades die? Then you shall see each of them fall before you follow. But first, one more vision will stamp your eye. I know you have waited long for it."

The Tesseract pulsed. Thor, bent double as if he'd been kicked in the stomach, raised his head and stared past Loki.

Dread weighing heavy on him, Loki turned to look.

Frigga Fjörgynsdottir stood before the gallows, her wasted head held high. Mother.

"No!" Thor cried. "You said it wouldn't be her. We had a bargain!"

A bargain? With Thanos? Loki could hardly believe it. This was not the Thor he had known. Despite himself, he was impressed. What could Thor possibly have offered?

"The bargain was that she would come last," Thanos said. "So she has, save for you and the old white-hair. Her time has come. The queen precedes her king."

It couldn't be. All were dead, all had fallen? Asgard was desolate? Then only those closest to him remained to kill. No. No. Mother. He'd been too slow. He'd meant to set his plan in motion before their turn came. Events had raced on ahead of him. Too slow.

A sudden memory from his childhood flashed through his mind. He'd run a race with Thor and his friends, and come in last. Loki Laggard, someone had shouted. Loki Slowfoot. Who had it been? He'd held back his tears until he was in private. Mother had stroked his hair.

In the ghastly present, his mother stepped forward until she stood at his side. Her eyes remained on Thor.

"My son," she said.

"I'm sorry," Thor said. "Mother, I'm sorry. I tried to protect you."

"No, my heart. I bore you. It was I who failed to protect you."

She turned her head to Loki. He gasped for air. Her hair was lank and hollows lived in her cheeks that had been smooth and fresh. Her dark eyes were liquid with feeling, but he could not read it for he could not meet them for more than a second: it was like staring into a blazing sun. How she must regret her charity in raising him now. He wished he could put his head on her knee and feel her smooth his hair once more. He had relinquished her love forever.

She said nothing to him.

"Loki," Thanos said. The monster was flush with ghoulish pleasure. What a windfall he'd come upon to glut his destructiveness. What a gift from the gods Loki had been to him. "Loki, what think you? What spectacle have you devised for the queen? She is a rare creature. It must be a rare death."

In the shock of seeing his mother he had forgotten his own role. He was to pronounce her sentence.

His mind went blank. He gaped stupidly like a fish at Thanos. Words, he needed words. He could feel the three of them looking at him. Waiting for him. He wavered on a knife's point.

He could not do it. He was close, so close to ending Thanos, but he had come to the end of his means; he foundered, searching for the coldness he had wrapped around himself, the ruthlessness that had arisen from his old hurts, his old anger. He found nothing. He had no shield. His plan was sinking in sentiment.

He met his mother's eyes at last. He couldn't look away. He found no hatred there, but a heartache that blinded him. Her hand rose as if she might touch him and he waited, suspended in this moment, not knowing what would happen if she did.

Thor barreled to his feet. Loki and Frigga's heads turned as one.

The chains clattered too loudly. They were no longer around Thor's neck and arms. He had loosed himself somehow.

Quicker than Loki would have thought a mortal body could move, Thor darted around Thanos, drawing the chain tight about his legs. Caught off guard, Thanos roared – and then fell, a tree trunk crashing down a mountainside. His knees struck the ground with a mighty impact.

Frigga leapt into motion. She sprang forward and backhanded the kneeling Titan with a blow that drew the whole of her body into one smooth line.

The Tesseract burst from its setting and bounced end over end across the ground. Blood ran from between Frigga's fingers.

"Brother!" Thor shouted, his muscles bulging as he strained at the chain. He raised his hand; something wicked and sharp glittered in it. How? "If ever you were true to me, aid me now!"

Loki quivered, drawn taut with uncertainty, for a moment longer. He could play his role, abandon his brother and his mother and follow his plan through to the end with Thanos unaware of his true loyalty. Thor and Frigga would die believing Loki had betrayed them after all. Or he could join with them and... there was no way, no way they would succeed. Thanos could not be killed with such paltry weapons.

But his body responded more quickly than his mind. He kicked the Tesseract, sending it spinning far out of reach. He hefted the spear he had been clutching like an old man his staff.

"Move!" he shouted at Thor and Frigga. They recoiled from the Titan.

He hurled the spear. It flew true. It cut the air and then Thanos' skin and then his flesh, tearing into his chest and impaling his heart.

Loki caught Thor's eye. The triumph written all over his brother's face was so brilliant he nearly succumbed to it. For an instant he dared to believe. They had killed him. Together.

Then Thanos stirred. His oversized hand closed around the spear's shaft and drew it from his body as if it were no more than a thorn. The wound did not heal: it faded, like a drawing slowly erased from paper. Death refused to come to Thanos. He heaved himself to his feet, bursting the chain into individual links. The Tesseract flared.

Loki was running and Thor was running and Frigga stood, frozen, and they were shouting, shouting without words.

Two snakes of blue light slithered from the Tesseract, wrapped themselves around Thor and Frigga, and snapped their necks.

Loki jerked to a halt. Thor toppled at his feet, his body unnaturally twisted. Beyond Thanos, his mother was a crumpled heap of tattered clothing and waxen skin and frail bone. He saw these things, but he could not believe; surely they would stir any moment. Surely they could not simply be empty.

"No," he said.

"No?" hissed Thanos. "No?"

Thick, dank fingers wrapped around Loki's throat and lifted him into the air. He dangled, choking for breath.

"Insect! You have cost me a handsome tribute. You will pay for that. Did you believe you had fooled me, Thanos? Did you think your lies could ensnare Thanos the supreme? Eternal turncoat, who would ever weigh your words greater than a feather?"

"You," Loki rasped through his burning throat, "you knew – "

"I knew that you would turn on me. I knew that whatever scheme you spun would be a fool's game. A stupid child lashing out in impotent anger! The only surprise is how pathetic an attempt this proved to be."

"Why – why don't you – " Burning sparks jumped around Loki's vision. He could feel his awareness narrowing. Panic welled up in him and he kicked and gasped futilely for breath. Such pain in his throat. Everything was pain.

Thanos hurled him to the earth. His cheek connected with the ground with a crack that rang throughout his skull. "Why don't you just kill me?" he ground out through the fire in his throat.

"Kill you?" Thanos said with his malicious grin. "I will never kill you. Everyone else will fall. All the universe will be vanquished before me. But you, you will stay by my side. Never would I insult Lady Death by sending her such a worthless offering as you." He picked up the Tesseract and refitted it into its neckpiece.

"You're a monster," Loki half-sobbed. His voice wobbled like a rickety bridge, fading in and out around the pain. "A creature born of the darkest void. A nightmare of hate and envy of anything that lives and is less monstrous than you. Even death despises you. But something will end you – even you can't go on forever."

Thanos snarled. "You think yourself an assassin? You are a child sulking because your parents gave you too few toys. You looked into the abyss for your petty vengeance and now you like not what you found there. But it is too late. You must swallow what you have bitten off. That." He flung out a hand.

Loki looked up. Thanos had cast him at the foot of the gibbet. Idunn's body swung above him. Teeth showed through the decaying cheek; the empty eye sockets accused him. His heart lurched and pounded. He didn't look, but he could still feel Thor's glassy gaze. So much death, so many eyes; and in death they saw through him, saw everything he had spent a lifetime hiding. He had brought all of this.

"Do you not relish your own handiwork? Soon there will be more. An army truly does wait on Earth. Odinson's anguish shows that much to be true. Whatever trick you thought to play will end in their deaths just the same."

"They will kill you," Loki spat. "They are more powerful than you know!"

But Thanos possessed not even the memory of fear. He would walk laughing into any trap, for he knew it would bash itself to pieces on him. He saw no danger, only the chance of more glory for Death.

"No one is more powerful than Thanos," he said. "It matters not what your scheme is. Your friends and enemies alike will die. I will find your last accomplice and give her, too, to Lady Death."

Loki's heart skipped in its desperate rhythm. "What? There is no – I have no other accomplices!"

Thanos could not know about Jane. How could he know? Did he truly know everything? The creature looming above him seemed suddenly a god in truth, invincible and all-knowing. A vengeful god!

"But you do. I saw you all three in the giants' mirror. You and Odinson and a woman who wore your colors. Is there another whom you love, Loki? Did you leave her on Earth? Then she will die, too. I will make sure you are there to see it."

"No," Loki moaned. He staggered to his feet. The hanging corpse nearly entangled him in its arms.

He fled, Thanos' laughter at his heels.

He ran from the courtyard and through the city, across bridges and through promenades and boulevards and avenues, all silent and deserted. His mortal lungs drew only short breaths and each one scorched him like fire. Blood ran from his mouth. He had bitten his tongue when Thanos choked him. Still he ran, as if he might run out of Asgard, run out of this nightmare, out of his own life.

He came to the rainbow bridge. The beautiful quartz stretched out its broad back over the sea and with each step upon it, mute bursts of color lit and died under his feet. He ran to the very brink of Asgard, until there was nowhere left to run, and fell to his knees at the broken edge where the Bifrost had once been the city's door to the universe.

The ocean roared over the edge into the void. Its spray moistened his flushed face. Thor, he thought. Mother. Thor.

Every time he blinked, the image of his brother's neck at that unnatural angle burned in the blackness behind his lids. What madness had possessed him? The fool, the halfwit, the great oaf... Always charging heedless into danger. How could he have dreamed to attack Thanos with nothing but the strength of his arms?

If only Thor had listened to him and left the Nine Realms instead of coming here. If only Thor had listened to him, ever. If only he –

Stinging tears forced their way from his eyes. His slammed his fists onto the bridge, but the pain was not enough to drive them back. He wept, and covered his face for shame at weeping. The tears ran through his fingers, hot and sticky with salt. He wept for Thor and for his mother, for Sif and for Volstagg and the Warriors Three; for all those who had come to ruin; even for Odin, wherever he might be. He wept for the foolish waste he had made of his life and for the destruction it had caused. But most of all for Thor.

The tears slowed at last, until his eyes, exhausted, were clear. He climbed to his shaky legs and crept to the furthest splintered edge of the bridge. The water hurtled over the brink to become frost lacing the vastness of the void. There beyond it were the darkness, the stars, the shining clouds in the profundity of space.

This was where he had fallen from Asgard these many, many months ago. This was where Thor had cast him out... hadn't he? He tried to recall that fight with his brother, but his memory was like a colored glass window that had been smashed and pieced precariously back together. There were flashes, silent: Thor knocked to the ground, Thor extending his hand, mouthing no, letting go of the spear. He'd brooded on those events so much that they had an air of unreality about them. Had it happened so?

He no longer cared. If Thor had tried to kill him, well, he had tried to kill Thor enough times that they were more than even. None of it mattered anymore. All his life he had passed in Thor's shadow. He'd thought once that if he could eradicate that suffocating shadow he would finally be able to grow. To become someone in his own right. But with Thor's shadow fallen at last, he was still the same Loki; his inadequacy remained with him, for it had never been created by Thor, but lived inside himself. It would follow him wherever he went. All his grasping and thrashing had been in vain.

He stared into the abyss. He had fallen from here, and that fall had led him to Thanos, and Thanos had pursued him right back to this place where he had begun. The black, airless void had been terrible – maddening – but not deadly, not then. If he fell now, there would be no coming out the other side. His mortal body would die within minutes. With it would die all the burden of his guilt, his memory, all the effort of trying to undo what he had wrought. He could die, and Asgard would die with him. Were their souls still admitted to Valhalla? Would his be flung into Hel? Would he wander in Niflheim? Or go to entertain Thanos' Lady Death? Perhaps mortal souls went nowhere and only an eternal sleep would await him. How restful it seemed to no longer be Loki; to no longer be.

"Loki?" Jane's voice said behind him.

He had not heard her step behind the roaring of the falls and of his thoughts.

"I waited for you in the observatory, but you didn't come. A piece of the machine is missing."

The ring. He had forgotten all about it. He took it out of the pocket of his overcoat. An edge was notched, but the delicate glass shone unbroken. He stared at it, but it seemed unimportant in the shadow of what had unfolded since he'd taken it.

"Why...?" Jane came around to his side, staring at the ring in his palm, and then at his face. "What's wrong? You're bleeding." Her hand rose and hovered, stopping before it touched his face. "And you look like you've been crying. What happened?"

"Thor is dead," he said, not taking his eyes off the ring. It was difficult to focus on it, or anything. Thor.

"What?"

"Thor," he repeated, "is dead. Thor is dead." Thor was dead. He said it over and over again in his mind.

Jane recoiled. "No," she said. "No way."

"Thanos killed him."

"Fuck!"

He looked up. She was pacing, her hands buried in her hair. The rainbows danced blithely away under her feet. She shook her head, eyes staring at nothing, arguing with no one.

"How could this happen? How could you let – " She broke off and began chewing on a nail. She was not weeping. She hadn't truly understood yet: only the words, not the meaning, not the true weight of it. For my part, I am your brother. We can, together.

"He attacked Thanos. Ever the brave fool."

"That idiot!" Jane flashed. "How could he – I'm going to – " She cut off and pressed a palm to her forehead. Blinking back tears now. She came towards Loki, bright eyes searching his, pleading, entreating him to say it wasn't true, to explain. "Why didn't you do something?"

"I tried," he said. A thousand words suddenly brimmed behind his lips. He had tried so hard; he'd been trying for what felt like eternity. "But I failed. Now Thanos knows I was dealing false with him."

She let out a long breath. "Does he know about the plan? The machine?" There was a look on her face he recognized. He'd seen it in mirrors whenever he caught a glimpse of his reflection, growing month after month since he'd left Asgard, and even sometimes in the years before. The roots of anger; the desire for vengeance.

He looked down at the ring in his hand. So did Jane.

"Why do you have that?" she said.

There seemed to be no more sense in lying. He felt drained of everything. Every illusion he had woven about himself had shattered. "The plan was never going to work, Jane. I had another scheme. A secret one. I needed this component to carry it out. I tricked you into working with me so I could get it."

She closed her eyes for a long moment and opened them again. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I knew you would never agree to my plan."

"Why not? What was it?"

"To control the Tesseract myself."

"But you can't do magic. That's why we were going to use Erik's machine! Loki, for the love of god, just tell me what's going on!"

He took a deep breath and let his last secret spill from his lips. "The plan wouldn't have worked because activating the Tesseract won't stop Thanos from being able to use its power. A mindless device can't wrest control from a master of sorcery like Thanos. He even noticed when you tried to detect residue from the Tesseract. That's why he came looking for me." His voice dropped as if someone might hear. "Our army will be facing an omnipotent god. They'll be so much carrion for the crows."

She blinked, uncomprehending. "So you've been lying to me the whole time. After everything. I can't believe..." Her voice hitched. Her eyes were wide, dark and vulnerable. Hurt.

"No!" he said involuntarily. "Jane, I was trying to spare you. I didn't lie about what really mattered. I want to defeat Thanos as much as you do. And," he went on, the words gaining strength. "I think I know how to do it." Metal bit into his palm. He realized he was gripping the ring hard enough to hurt, and stopped.

"How?"

He spun the ring in his fingers. "With this, I can control where the Tesseract opens the portal. I'll use the portal to cast Thanos out of Asgard. Once he's gone, the spell he's laid over the realm will dissipate. I'll have my magic back again." Warmth seeped back into his limbs as he spoke. His mind sputtered and sparked, coming to life. He still had the ring. He still had the one thing he needed. The only thing he'd lost was his failsafe. This wasn't over. "Once I can wield magic again," he said, slowly, deliberately, "I'll be able to undo everything Thanos has done. With the Tesseract."

She looked dazed, but the last words sunk in quickly. "Undo it? You mean you can bring Thor back to life?"

Maybe. Maybe. If the Norns had pity on him. "Yes. That's the real plan."

Jane was quiet for a long time. The seas cannoned over the edge of the land. Little rainbows danced in the spray, rainbows flickered beneath their feet; rainbows all around, a riot of colors hidden unless one looked close. She took the ring from him and he relinquished it without protest. She turned it over gently in her hand. He watched her think. The stars burned overhead and the summer moon moved.

"You were going to reset the coordinates and send him somewhere random?" she asked at last. "Given how much of the universe is empty space, there's a ninety-nine percent chance he'd end up floating between galaxies somewhere. But would that kill him?"

"I... don't know, in truth. But as long as I send him far enough away, his connection to the Tesseract will be broken. I couldn't think of a better way without being able to tell you. Jane," he said, and she looked up at him. "This is the only thing that has any chance of working. Thanos is a mad god, a force of nature. He'll never stop himself; he must be stopped. No matter the price."

Her teeth caught her lip. "And by price, you mean... the lives of the people in our army. They'd be up against him and the full power of the Tesseract. They would – he'll probably kill most of them. Then you'll throw him out into space somewhere, but there's no guarantee he'll die. So you'll be sacrificing our people just to get him out of Asgard. He'll still be alive. He can just go on and terrorize someone else if he ever hits solid land again."

"Yes," he admitted.

"Your plans are terrible."

He seized her hand. "I can bring them back, Jane. All of them. Everyone Thanos kills through the power of the Tesseract." His voice sounded wild. He must look like a madman, raving about raising the dead. But he believed it; he must, or else he truly would go mad.

Her hands stilled under his. "I could reprogram this," she said in a low voice. "I could set the coordinates for the center of the sun. Nothing could survive being torn apart atom by atom on a nuclear level." She looked up at him, a savage light in her eye.

The spark of hope that flared in him seared his frayed nerves. Jane, beautiful Jane.

"That might actually work," he said slowly. Had Thanos ever been hurled into a star? He couldn't recall hearing any such story among the many rumors of the mad Titan he'd come across. Thanos dealt death in battle and his foes responded in kind. He had survived things no one should be able to survive, but to pass unscathed through the forge at the heart of a sun? It seemed impossible, even for him.

"You should have told me," Jane said. "The coordinate programming system was ready yesterday. I could have reprogrammed it and you could have done everything before Thor..." She expelled a shuddering breath. "You should have trusted me!"

"Jane, if this doesn't work – if I can't undo Thanos' work – what he has done here will endure. Your friends will fight him and fall and they won't be restored to life."

"The Avengers," she said under her breath. "Tony. Natasha – "

She was quiet for another long spell before she started to pace again. The sea spray shone on her hair as she pushed a hand through it. "We'd be gambling all their lives. I'd, I'd have to go down to Stark Tower and talk to them like everything's normal while I'm planning to send them into the meat grinder? How can I do that? I can't possibly tell them the truth. No one is going to lay down their life trusting Loki to resurrect them again. I'd be betraying them. I won't be able to look them in the eye. And if it doesn't work, if you can't control the Tesseract..."

She had put her finger on it. She was reacting just as he'd feared weeks ago when the idea had come to him. Only now her struggle felt like it belonged to him as well. Her distress pained him.

Perhaps if he had learned to see through her eyes, he could make her see through his as well.

"If you don't try," Loki said, "then Thor is already dead and nothing can change that. The same is true of all the people of Asgard. My mother. People who were my friends, whom I betrayed. With this, I have a chance to return them all to life. Asgard can live again." He had a chance to shed the agonizing burden of guilt. To make good. To undo the unspeakable horror he'd wrought.

She closed her eyes again. "I'm a scientist, Loki. Nobody elected me, or, or put me in charge of anything. I'm not supposed to make life and death decisions!" When she opened her eyes, they were shining.

"Then consider this: when Thanos is finished here, he'll begin looking for new realms to devastate. He already knows of Earth. Its people are numerous. Eventually, his attention will wander there. I doubt it will take very long. No weapon or defense humanity has will stop him. We'll be as good as condemning your friends and your planet to death by standing idle. You're the only human who knows what he can do, who knows the true magnitude of the threat. And that means you're the only human who can decide what to do about it."

She took another shaky breath. "Oh, Thor. I wish he were here. I, I can't even tell what's right anymore. He always knows what's right. Ever since I met you," she said, her gaze lucid, "every time I'm with you, I have to lie to someone, or help kill someone, or do something else terrible. Everything I do is a step on a road that keeps getting darker and darker. And it's always you I'm following."

He took her hand, turned it palm up, ran his thumb over her skin. "Take this last step with me. No, not a step – a leap. A leap into darkness. A leap into the abyss. Maybe we'll come out the other side and find home the way we left it. If not... at least we won't be alone in the dark."

She gripped his hand fiercely. "Tell me this is going to work."

"I can't. But we don't have a better choice."

They teetered at the edge of the world, where water and wind became void, where the solid earth became nothing and there was nothing more to stand on. Her expression was translucent as glass. He saw her make the decision she believed she had no right to make.

"It's all in, then," she said.

The final wager, the last, desperate gamble. Everything they had left. A sacrifice of all who remained in the hope of winning them all back.

"I'll be back in twenty minutes," she said.

"I'll wait for you."

She squeezed his hand hard one last time and went to roll the dice.


Contains: major and minor character death, suicidal thoughts