Episode 10: The Magic I Know, Chapter 6
The fireball disappeared into the gulf of velvet darkness, revealing in the light of its passage some decidedly less than velvety rocks on the opposite wall. The dog did not follow suit. A rough, hacking cough filled the air and Loki looked back to see his nemesis laughing.
"Do you think me some fool," gasped the hound of Hel. "So foolish that I would unthinkingly follow a trinket into my mistress' realm because you commanded it such."
"Worth a shot," shrugged the god of mischief and fire. He clapped his hands together and drew them slowly apart, a twisting ball of flame writhed into life between this palms. With a flick of his wrists, he sent it hurtling towards the great hound of Hel. The dog dodged aside, rolling to avoid the flames.
When he rose to his feet again, Garm lunged at where the boy had been, but there was no Loki there. A wild chuckle echoed from the rocks around him and fire singed his tail. The hound turned. Still there was no Loki visible, but now there was darkness ahead. Another fireball flashed from the shadows, illuminating a broad tunnel before him. Garm ducked, but felt pain fizz down his ear. He snarled, blood and saliva dripping from his fangs. A third fireball appeared from nothing, catching the giant dog's shoulder. He howled in pain and in rage, charging forward into the unknown. Darkness enveloped him, wrapping him round in velvet shadow. By the time the signal reached his brain that his paws could not feel what his eyes had seen, he was already falling.
Red light flickered into life like sparks from wind-blown embers. The god of mischief looked down into the pit. "I don't just do fireballs, you know."
Behind them Fenris-wolf bore down on Sif, one huge paw sending her tumbling across the unyielding rock floor. The wolf snarled in triumph. In the wavering, shimmering light of the rainbow bridge, the golden head lay still. Fenris-wolf crouched to leap, muscles moving under the silver fur as she prepared to spring, ready to devour her prey. She leapt, eyes glittering in the rainbow light, fixed on the still body before her.
At the zenith of her arc, Fenrir felt the world grind to a sudden halt. Her body wrapped around the solid staff, its momentum wrapping her round the obstacle even as it pushed her back and down. She lay on the rock floor, panting and coughing blood. Breathing hurt. A rib was broken for sure. Probably more than one. No matter. Her function was not to survive this fight, merely to win it. A movement in the once still air warned her of her new opponent's attack. She rolled, coming to her feet in one smooth motion, and caught the staff in her mighty jaws. The old man was strong. He held on to the staff for a long time, wrestling with her for control of it. She was stronger. She ground her jaws together. The ancient wood cracked and broke with a sound like a gunshot. A shockwave reverberated through the cavern. It rippled up the rainbow bridge, its echoes ending who knew where. It shook the floor, knocking the old man to the ground and the young one to his knees by the still and silent golden head. Fenrir's claws lashed out, tearing new scars into the face and torso of the so-called Allfather.
"Faigh bàs, Bodach!" Fenrir snarled, one huge paw descending on the old man's chest, pressing the breath out of him. "And know your friends will follow you!"
Light filled the carvern. It suffused the air like sunrise through Scotch mist. It drowned the light of the Bifrost in the golden warmth of summer. It spread out into the corners of the cavern like a solar flare. Crouched over Sif's silent form, Loki raised a hand to shield his eyes.
"No!"
The shout came from the very centre of the light. Loki looked up, recognising the voice. Floating a foot off the ground, Seonaidh shone like the sun.
"Ye took my old life from me, Mother. Ye shall not take my new one!"
The cavern began to shake, pebbles dancing on the rocky floor. Far off echoes signalled the collapse of tunnels yet untrodden. A pulse of light rippled out from the young witch, forcing her mother back. A roar like the crashing of storm-driven waves filled the caves. The ceiling crumbled. Rock after rock, boulder after boulder, one side of the cavern was filled, the crushed bodies of Fenris-wolf and Garm buried forever under an immovable cairn.
When the last stone stopped still, Seonaidh turned a weary face to her new family. Loki was watching her, awestruck. Sif, was slowly sitting up, her eyes on her youngest charge beside her. Odin lay still and bleeding. "See to my grandfather," she bid him, locking eyes with her lover in silence until he nodded, once. "When this is done, come to me. There are words that must be said between us."
Without waiting for an answering nod this time, Seonaidh vanished. Loki scrambled to his feet, Sif forgotten, and skidded to his mentor's side. In one way the old man would match Odin more fully now: his left eye was gone. He was breathing in short, shallow gasps and blood flecked his lips. Loki felt himself moved gently aside and slender hands probed the old man's torso. A sharp intake of breath spoke of his return to consciousness. Jenkins groaned. His staff was gone, his nemesis was gone, his avatar was gone. He was back to his usual, semi-immortal self: hard to kill, but not so hard to hurt. He coughed, then immediately groaned at the shard of pain the movement awakened.
"Get him out of here," ordered Sif, helping Jenkins to his feet as if she herself had no injuries to speak of.
"What about you," Loki cast a glance to where Hel was still chanting and Thor was wrestling with the semi-serpentine Jormungand, "and them?"
"Two against two is pretty good odds considering what we usually get!" Sif shrugged. "Go see how everyone else is doing. They might need you more and Jenkins certainly does!"
"I've had worse," groaned the perfect knight.
"What's your point?" Sif retorted, waving a hand at the doorway to the cavern. The rain of rock that had destroyed half the cavern and Fenris-wolf had stopped short a few feet before it reached them; being behind them, the door they had entered by had escaped destruction. "Go. I can handle this. Frey should have joined us by now. Find out why he hasn't."
Jenkins, one hand on his side, the other around Loki's shoulders, put his head on one side. "I think we both know the answer to that mystery.
"Go," said Sif. "And that's an order!"
The old man bobbed his head, looked at his young comrade and nodded at the doorway. Limping and stumbling a little, the two disappeared into its shadows.
Sif turned to the woman standing before the Bifrost, doggedly chanting in a language Eve would not have recognised. Sif did. The chant was long, and it drew power from the battles being fought around it. Every time an avatar of the final battle followed their path, the chant gained power. Garm was dead. Fenrir was dead. All the wolves were. But then, they had been supposed to die, hadn't they? Their deaths – the thing that had made Sif think they were winning – were all a part of the order of events needed for the magic to succeed. Not everything had gone according to Hel's plan, though. Loki had switched sides. Odin had survived, or at least Jenkins had. Perhaps the avatar of Odin had died when it left Jenkins body. She was an unknown though: she had never been a player in the original tale, nor mentioned in any telling of it. She was a wild card. Stooping to pick up her sword and shield, she set her sights on Hel.
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Thor bent his weight upon his hammer, crouching down behind the shield. Bruises bloomed on his opponents torso and face, but for all it's strikes, the hammer hadn't opened up a single cut upon the skin. He had beaten the chimerical monster with strike after strike, blow after blow, from the tip of his curling tail to the too huge jaws of his nightmarish face. He had wrestled the creature with a strength this once fragile body was unused to, pulling an arm around its neck and squeezing with everything he had in him. The serpent had kept his human arms in his weird transition and those arms had gripped him and thrown him hard against the wall. Then the cavern had filled with light and the incongruous arms had been flung up before the monster's eyes. Thor had made use of that moment, Mjolnir flying true from his hand to land hard against the Midgard Serpent's semi-human forehead and drive the creature backwards. He had been halfway towards his foe when the hammer returned to his hand, as it ever would, and had barely had time to raise his shield when, darting out of darkness, the razor sharp teeth and spitting venom struck again, as fast as any snake. The weight and force of Mjolnir should have crushed his skull: why hadn't it? The Librarian in him wanted an answer. Thor merely wanted to fight. He foe was not yet vanquished: there was work to be done.
Punching the shield upwards, Thor stood. The monster wheeled back, shaking its head and snarling in a way no serpent should be able to. When it struck again, it met Mjolnir coming the other way.
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Sif, mother of the hunter, stalked her prey, her eyes focused on the back of the woman's head. It was so clear now. How had she missed it. The Evil Queen they had all been hunting wasn't Cassandra's mother or Ezekiel's future mother in law, she was someone else entirely. Someone Sif felt sure she would have spotted earlier had she been present. A purring growl reminded Sif that someone else had been protecting this body, stalking this prey, much longer than she had.
She stopped barely a sword length from her target. She could run her through without warning – stop everything right here, right now – but there would be no honour in such a triumph. A voice in her crowded mind told her in no uncertain terms what she could do with honour.
"Hel!" Sif called out, raising her voice over the chanting, the fighting and the complaints ringing out within her head. "I challenge you! Turn and face me oh Queen of the Dead, let me send you back to them. Your subjects are missing their monarch!"
Still chanting, the woman turned. Sif shivered to see the rotting corpse flesh of the dead half of Hel's face. It was right that she should be here: that she should be the one to face this foe. She had been itching to fight her on so many occasions. Whatever her husband felt or said, and she had no doubts of his fidelity, this was the woman who had tried, was perhaps still trying, to take him away from her. Shifting her grip on her sword, Sif locked eyes with the one white, one bright eyes of her opponent. They were the once beautiful eyes of Emily Davenport.
