"Place one there, Ellisif."

Loki pointed at an enormous pine guarding the way forward. Ellisif drew on the tree with her finger, leaving a soft glow behind, one that would mark the tree without harming it. She pointed at it with a raise of her eyebrows.

"Yes, yes, it looks very nice," he said as he gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "They all look very nice."

Loki looked back at the way they had already walked, here in this pathless wood. Other blazes glowed there, showing them the way back to Lokasala. As if that weren't clue enough, an illusory map shimmered just behind Ellisif's head. Colorful dots noted their path all the way from the golden apple tree to their present location.

"Can you generate a parchment version of that?" Cinderbark asked as he and Beardtongue, rolling along hand in hand, caught up to them. "When we get back, I mean. It would come in handy."

Beardtongue added, as Ellisif nodded, "It would be a nice addition to the front hall. We could carve it-"

"I could pick it out in metal and jewels," Cinderbark said with a sigh. "If only I had my tools! Don't get me wrong, little Elli, the tools you witched up for me are wonderful! But back at our forge in Myrkheim I have such tools, enchanted tools!"

"Enchanted?" asked Loki as they set off again. "How so?"

The dwarves expounded on the wonders of their old forge in Nidavellir as they slipped through a small canyon of lichen-smothered rock. On the other side, soft moss and pine needles softened their footsteps as they wandered through filtered sunlight. It dappled the ground, now green, now dark, now green again.

Ellisif's map, dancing behind her head as she bobbed it left and right to get a good view of it all, filled in its blank spots as if some invisible hand were scratching it out with a quill, nothing where the pines and junipers faded once more into oak and elm. Warm and cool, cool and warm, in and out of the sun, they neared their goal: the creek that fed the Friggavattn, the one that harbored Magnus' boat by the shore it shared with the wider river. After getting Ulf and his goats settled in, Loki had decided that it was time to explore beyond the slender golden apple tree, grown hardy with Torfa's prodigious output.

He had awakened that morning in a cold sweat, alone in his enormous bed in his enormous and empty king's chamber. The tendrils of his nightmare still clung to him, latched into his throat like a serpent, heavy on his neck and wrists as those accursed shackles, those wretched rune-carved shackles, that had bound him in trial before Odin's throne. The runes etched into the uru had muzzled his power and muffled his Perception, and he hated them with the fire of a thousand burning suns. He shuddered in the middle of a shaft of warm sunlight as he tried to shake off the memory.

As the days passed in Eddaheim, he found his Perception growing ever keener, as sharp as it had been in his boyhood. As soon as he had been old enough to wander alone, he had tramped all over Asgard. He had sensed them, these portals to other worlds, like a cat sensing the presence of prey with its whiskers. And this morning, steps from the apple tree, he had felt it again, that pulse throbbing in the distance. He had felt such a pulse faintly, on Magnus' boat, as they had passed the portal that had brought the trolls from Alfheim.

But this new one was not on the river. Was it a new portal, or one left over from the Convergence that just now made itself known? When he had returned to Lokasala, he had surprised his people, just then bellying up to a second breakfast on the porch after finishing their early morning chores.

"Anyone up for a walk?"

They formed a small party: Loki, Ellisif, the dwarves, and two of the Bees. The Queen had sent them along to scout out fresh blossoms for the Hive. Already they had found pear and plum trees not far off their path. At least that's what Ellisif's map reported after a Bee had ridden on her shoulder for a while, humming in her ear.

Loki glanced at her face from time to time as the cat-sized insect conferred with her, and from time to time she inhaled sharply through slightly parted lips, on the very edge of speech; then, catching herself, she clamped her mouth shut, sucking her thin lips between her teeth. His Perception pinged him as she did so, and again he knew that her lack of words did not mean lack of ability.

Say my name, he thought. What magic would there be in that, if you only spoke my name? If they had been alone, he would have demanded, again, to know the cause of her silence. But with the dwarves there, he let it be. For now.

The Bee left her shoulder, buzzed about the walkers, waggled a greeting at a passing dragonfly, and flew off again. As the drone of the dragonfly faded out, the distant music of rippling water signalled that they were near the creek. Indeed, it lay below them as they crested the next hill, near the massive rock cliffs of the inner ring.

"Looks like we made it," Beardtongue said. He tugged on the hem of Cinderbark's tunic. "Fancy a swim, love?"

The deep pool gurgling beneath a waterfall did indeed look inviting, as they were all doused in sweat by now. The creek poured out of the mouth of a cave that led into the cliff wall. As the dwarves climbed out of their tunics and into the water, he studied the layers of broken rock that made up the entrance. One large outer ring revealed a glimpse of another, smaller opening a few steps inside it, then yet another smaller one that led into the cave proper, almost like an anteroom leading to the more serious business of darkness. It more resembled a cave throat than a cave mouth. A ledge of stone framed either side of the flow, providing a path that led away from the light and deeper into the cliff wall. And that chamber held the pulsing, singing link to some other Realm within Yggdrasil.

"Ready to take a look inside?" he asked Ellisif before turning to her, hand out to assist her over the slick rocks. But only her map hovered next to him; her only answer was a loud splash as she threw herself into the deep pool.

"Ellisif?"

A dark shape writhed about in the froth beneath the falls, and then it glowed with a familiar light. A different face broke the surface of the water, far different than the one that had plunged in. Dripping rose-gold hair clung in waves about a porcelain face that belonged on a classical statue. Fuller, redder lips than he was used to seeing on her curled up at the corners. Only the muddy brown eyes were the same. She waved at Loki, then flipped backwards into the creek; bare wet skin that shimmered in the sunlight gave way to iridescent scales and the flick of a fishy tail. On her floating map, a tiny mermaid figure swam through the freshly drawn lines of the creek.

"Very well," he muttered. "You two," he yelled at the dwarves, "keep an eye on her, would you? I'm going to have a look inside."

"Certainly," Beardtongue called back. "Though in her present shape she's not likely to drown."

"Take care, yourself," Cinderbark added. "Let us know if you find anything useful." He cleared his throat. "M'lord."

With a conjured flame dancing in his fingertips, Loki carefully picked his way along the slick wet rock, moving slowly as he allowed the portal to lead him in. He turned up the brightness of his handheld light, to see if it were a large cavern or a labyrinth. It seemed an ordinary sort of cave, with a high ceiling prickled with stalactites reaching down for their stalagmite mates on the wide floor below. The creek cut through a wider plaza of bedrock that extended far to the right of the entrance. Dripping moisture glistened like diamonds as it reflected his light back at him.

Turning the light down, he followed the pulse like a scent in the darkness. He thought he might see it readily if whatever Realm lay on the other side was vastly different, say going from darkness of a cave to a bright day in an Alfheim meadow, or even the sickly half-light of Svartalfheim or Jotunheim. He ventured a few steps forward. A faint semicircle of light flickered on the cave wall all the way to his right, but he could not be sure if it marked the rim of a portal or was just a cleverly arranged clump of glowworms, as there was no other change he could detect. It just seemed to lead to another chamber in the cave.

He stepped through it, slowly, taking his time as rock formations blocked his way, throttling down the space from wide open chamber to low-ceilinged clutter. Now he felt the pulse behind him. He examined the opening again, seeing the same flickering on this side. How could this be, if were still in Eddaheim? Unless…

Voices, mortal voices, overcame the steady dripdrip of stalactite-forming moisture. Loki, accustomed to Allspeak translating everything for him, took a moment to realize that the speaker used Midgardian English, the American version. An accent from somewhere in the southern mountains…

"…has been one of the Southeast's favorite destinations since it was discovered in 1928."

Light blossomed over the herd of boulders, revealing a well-defined path between them. Loki willed himself invisible as he slipped behind the largest one. A uniformed young lady led a collection of mortals of all ages, clad in shorts and sandals, past the spot where Loki had entered. A straggler, one of the younger visitors, dropped a shiny yellow paper as he stumbled over a slightly raised threshold.

"Now after the Leaning Tower, we have the Dragon's Foot- oh, my! Watch out for this slick spot. Remember, we're still in a cave, folks! Please watch your head."

Her voice faded with the lights as the tour group continued on. Still invisible, Loki reached for the dropped brochure and crossed back through to Eddaheim before chancing his own light to read it by.

WELCOME TO RUBY FALLS, it said, listing an address somewhere on a mountain called Lookout. There was even a map of the cave, one deep in the heart of a mountain near a city called Chattanooga.

So. This portal connected two caves, one in the Soul Stone to one in Midgard. Loki raised an eyebrow at the thought. This is the same way to portal to Alfheim worked, connecting one body of water to another. Was it a pattern? Or just a coincidence? He would have to ask Ellisif.

This was concerning. The other side was in a cave, yes, but a well-visited one. Loki planned to consult with Selvig. Midgard was a large place, but perhaps he knew something about the area around this Lookout Mountain. What if one of these short-lived mortals wandered through to Eddaheim? Would they even notice, or turn around without ever knowing they had left Earth, albeit temporarily?

Or what if the cave-loving Kolla decided to take a trip to Midgard? This portal was not so very far from Lokasala, and not all that difficult to locate if one knew what they were looking for. And Kolla was a bright troll. He was fairly certain that the Alfheim bounty hunters would not be on Midgard, but one never knew who was finding what portal. Fury flared brightly in him at the thought of the Wanted poster, squirrelled in his secret tower. He still had not told the trolls about it. He just had to keep them here, here and safe, that was all.

With a wave of his hand he tucked the brochure into his magical pocket and strolled back to the mouth of the cave, eager to return to the light. He became visible again as he was well out of view of any curious child peeking through the portal. They would have to block it or set an alarm or something in case someone wandered through it.

With relief he emerged into the surface world once more, moving slowly through the long throat at the entrance to let his vision adjust to the light. Mermaid-Ellisif was making friends with a frog (apparently none of the Alfheim variety had made it through the portal). The dwarves were happily splashing each other in the shallows, cooling off from the heat of the day. A bubble of fiery runes above Ellisif's hair popped as she noticed Loki stepping down from the rock ledge onto the mossy shore of the creek.

"Ah, there you are. My Lord." Cinderbark called out, throwing the honorific in as an afterthought. "We three have been discussing the forge."

"Discussing?"

"After a fashion. The young lady has offered to give us passage back to our village of Myrkheim so we can retrieve some of those tools we mentioned earlier."

"Yes, I'd love to make use of that uru m'lady troll found. Say, some chain mail?"

"Chain mail? How so?" Loki frowned. "To make rings, you have to be able to extrude wire from it. Uru can't be extruded. Everybody knows that."

Cinderbark grinned. "Oh, not everybody. I didn't get that particular memorandum."

"You can do that? Truly? Extrude uru?"

"Get me my tools back, and I'll show you."

Loki grunted. What an advantage that would be, if only it were true. "With what forge? Uru is notoriously-"

Cinderbark waved away his question. "Difficult to work? The old dying star chestnut? That's for drama queens, m'Lord. Sure, it might give you more enchantment density, pound for pound, like with your brother's hammer. But it's not necessary to get some use out of the ore, if you know what you're doing."

"Though we should take our own drink," Beardtongue added. "The drought's still on, I'll wager."

Cinderbark elbowed him in the side with a wink and stage-whispered, "Wait'll they see why. Can't wait to see the looks on their faces."

Ellisif winked at him and blew him a kiss as she flicked drops of water at him with her mermaid's tail.

Loki chuckled at her antics and graced her with a smile of his own. "We'll go. The lady and I can always disguise ourselves as locals. She seems to be holding her shapes well enough. We need some news of the outside world. Perhaps some market square gossip will fit the bill."

Like how Asgard is faring in my absence, he thought. Is Thor on my trail? Or has he taken the throne at last from a younger Odin, one that has regained an eye but lost his wits?

Ellisif's map fluttered by, folding and unfolding itself out of boredom. The word When ran about it in circles.

"Yes," Loki said, "when shall we go?"

"Not right now," Beardtongue said. "Tomorrow. Tonight, we're for supper and sleep."

Cinderbark nodded. "And stories, too, my Lord. You were going to read to us from one of those mortal poets… oh, what was his name?"

"Bill," replied Beardtongue.

"Yes, yes, that Bard fellow. From something called The Tempest, was it?"

"Of course," Loki answered. He knelt down by the creek near where Ellisif was swimming. "Ready to take us to Nidavellir tomorrow, my dear?"

Ellisif nodded at him slowly and flashed him a winning smile.

We're going on an adventure. The words bubbled above her head and popped loudly. She shimmied her shoulders, jiggling her mermaidenly assets in full view. Loki smirked. He knew flirting when he saw it.

"If I didn't know any better, Ellisif, I'd say you were trying to seduce me." He leaned in closer to her, close enough for her to feel his exhalations, and growled in that low voice that had once lulled Sigyn into kissing him beneath an apple tree: "Just say my name, sweet one, one soft whisper of it, two little syllables, and I'll consider it."

Her bright smile dissolved into a pout and with a hard splash she plunged back beneath the waterfall. The word sorry floated up from the depths, hovered in front of Loki's face for a moment, then melted back into the water. The dwarves shot him a look, one that the Warriors Three had thrown many times at Thor in his more boorish moments.

"What?" Loki demanded as he watched her swim beneath the surface. He shrugged. "Well. It was worth a try."