A SUBTLER KIND OF POWER

So James the Seeker and I had our little talk. Then he took Sigmund and left. His companions - no less than Illyana herself and some wretched Spider-woman who was carrying a horrible axe - departed with James and Sigmund.

One of Illyanan's hunting creatures lay dead in the alley next to me. I killed the monster after it tracked me down, but in the process it badly clawed me.

And, of course, there was a gaping wound in my back. How was I to know that a boy Sigmund's age had a vicious barbarian of a girlfriend?

So that was how that blasted demon of vengeance found me: injured, weak, and sprawled in my own blood. I needed time to recover, but I wasn't going to get it.

"Hello, Loki," the demon growled as it crouched next to me. There was a strangely gritty aspect to its voice.

The demon's clothes were denim and leather rags. Its boots were cut and scarred. A brutal-looking chain hung negligently from the demon's skeletal hands. Within the burning skull of the demon's head, I could see sparks - deep-red and angry - in its eye-sockets.

I was in a great deal of trouble.

The demon is known as Zarathos, but it's human form was originally named Johnny Blaze. The human form was centuries old, and how it survived for so long was beyond me. Perhaps Zarathos simply liked Blaze? Was such a thing possible? Demons do keep pets. It's just that their pets are usually savage and monstrous.

Blaze-Zarathos was quite angry with me. That had something to do with me killing one of its friends. So many beings can be utterly tiresome about that sort of thing.

There was a short struggle. I inevitably lost.

Then the demon tore out my entrails and strangled me to death with them.

That hurt.

I resurrected near the docks of New York city - what the local savages now call Nyack. However, I was terribly weak. I tried to teleport away, but the spell failed miserably.

Again, I needed time to recover. Again, I was not going to get it. The All-Father's edict that Asgardians were not to venture to Midgard was drastically weakening me. While I was on Midgard, I was only a fraction of myself, and any wounds I'd suffered would take considerable time to heal.

The demon found me as I staggered along the docks, looking for a boat to steal.

"Damn it," I whispered when it appeared in front of me.

A curious crowd of sailors and dockworkers watched as the demon tore the limbs from my shrieking body. It saved my head for last. It seemed like a terribly long time before I died.

That also hurt.

The next time Blaze found me, it bound me to an iron post by wrapping his chain around my body. Then the demon slowly heated the chain until it was red-hot.

I cooked to death.

In case you're curious, the smell was much like burning pork.

"Can we perhaps talk about this?" I asked after it found me the fourth time. I could hear the desperation in my voice.

"No," the demon replied. Then it flayed me alive.

A bit unimaginative, but the pain was excruciating.

"I did it because I love that boy," I said as soon as I saw Blaze. "I wouldn't let him be enslaved by House Strange."

"I know," it told me.

Then the demon cut me open and stuffed live rats inside my body.

Blaze - or Zarathos, I'm not sure which - used to be the actual King of Hell. He - it - has some truly odd ways of expressing its displeasure.

Breaking someone on the wheel is old-fashioned, but it never fails to get the point across. The point being, of course, that the breaker was deeply unhappy with the breakee.

"Stop," a boy's high voice ordered.

It was going to be - what? - the fifteenth time Blaze had tortured me to death? I was losing count. Really, it was amazing how Blaze managed to stay so committed. If it wasn't for the endless agony, I would have been completely bored.

Blaze gave the boy a long and silent look. For obvious reason, you really can't discern facial expressions on a Ghost Rider, but body language still counts for something.

Blaze was irritated by the interruption. However, it obeyed.

The boy stood in front of me. We were in the great park of Nyack. Blaze had found a wagon and tipped it onto its side so it would have an appropriate wheel. Then it tied me spread-eagled on the wheel and when to work on my arms and legs with a great hammer. The locals instantly fled, except for a few who watched from a horrified, yet fascinated, distance.

My limbs were broken in at least a dozen places by the time the boy appeared.

"My child, it's so good to see you," I managed to croak. And those were perhaps the most sincere words that have ever passed out of my mouth.

The boy was Sigmund. He's my many-times removed grandson. He was also fated to be the Sorcerer Supreme of the cosmos. In fact, because of my machinations, his spirit was intertwined with the spirit of a previous Sorcerer Supreme and...

Look, it's a long story. Perhaps later.

Sigmund was quite young and not terribly tall for his age. He had a narrow face, green eyes, and dark hair that he wore cut short. He was also boyishly handsome. I like to think that he favors me.

He was dressed much like any child from a not-quite-prosperous, yet not-quite-poor, family.

"Hello, grandfather," he said to me.

"You should be more careful of your appearance," I told him painfully. "Never forget that you are a prince of many realms. The cattle around you may comport themselves disgracefully, but you also share my blood - the blood of royal divinity. So wear better clothes and at least try to be stylish. And you should definitely get another pair of sandals. The ones you're wearing are falling apart."

Sigmund looked at Blaze. "Cyrus is alive," he told Blaze, "and he needs your protection."

Then Sigmund made a shooing gesture. Sigmund must have been taking to the Blaze part of the demon. Or perhaps Zarathos had depths that I couldn't quite fathom?

The demon couldn't sigh, but it did drop its sledgehammer and begin trudging away. The last I saw of the demon was its flaming skull framed against the silhouettes of the great towers of Nyack. I suppose it was on its way to the Sanctum Sanctorum.

"You've died twenty times over the last few days," Sigmund told me. "I think that's enough."

"Twenty?" I said in surprise.

Sigmund nodded.

I did a careful and agony-filled count.

"I don't remember that many," I told him.

"Your mind broke after the impalement," Sigmund told me. "You raved and gibbered through your next few executions."

I licked my dry lips. "Do you have some water?"

Sigmund gestured at someone who was out of my line of sight. A dark-skinned girl appeared. She had tawny eyes but otherwise looked ordinary. That suggested a mix of Creed and Folk blood. She agilely crawled up onto the wagon and crouched on the wheel next to me. She had a canteen in her hand. A set of daggers were sheathed at her skinny waist.

I recognized the girl. Her name was Sophie and she was the one who'd split my back open. I made a mental note that she should someday die a horrible death. My plan was working flawlessly - well, perhaps not flawlessly, but working well enough - until she put a dagger into one of my kidneys. Then she kicked with all her might.

Everything went downhill from there.

Sophie studied me wordlessly. Then she worked up a gobbet of saliva and spat in my face.

Really, was that necessary? I do so often feel misunderstood.

After that bit of savage thuggishness, Sophie held her canteen up and poured its contents over me.

I eagerly opened my mouth and tilted my head, trying to catch as much of the canteen's contents as possible.

"She really doesn't like you," Sigmund supplied helpfully.

I blinked water away from my eyes, snorted to clear my nose, and glared at Sigmund. "That kind of wit must come from your great - great - great - grandmother's side of the family."

Then I met Sophie's eyes and smiled pleasantly as I mentally escalated by several notches the horror of her eventual death.

She didn't look impressed, but time would tell. And time is usually on my side.

"You can't seem to die," Sigmund continued. "And I really don't want to see you suffering like this. So I want you to go away."

I flopped my head back onto the rim of the wheel.

"Go where?" I asked.

"Back to Asgard. Or any other realm you prefer. Just not this one."

I barked out a painful laugh. "Sigmund, people have been throwing me out of places for my entire life. Guess what?"

"You come back," Sigmund replied with a sad shake of his head.

"So how will you stop me, boy?"

Sophie pulled out a dagger. I knew that knife. At the sight of it, my lower back somehow managed to produce a jolt of pain even greater than my shattered limbs. That was the dagger Sophie had put into me once before.

The look in Sophie's eyes was beyond deadly. She made a gesture that suggested grasping something in one hand and slicing it off with her dagger. I felt a sudden urge to close my wide-spread legs, but my bonds made that impossible.

"Remember who I am," I told Sophie carefully. "If you do anything to me with that knife. I swear I will do any deed, pay any price, violate any trust, and commit any crime, just to make sure that you never develop a decent pair of breasts."

That made Sophie hesitate. I knew she had her eyes on a certain boy. And she didn't realize that the boy in question didn't care about such things. He'd already decided that he wanted her to be one with him.

Beauty is actually a competition between women. Men are just how women keep score.

"'Nough. Stahp," somebody said. I craned my head to catch a glimpse of the newcomer and...

"Damn it," I whispered.

Sophie - that horrible she-vermin - smiled at me. She knew what I was feeling.

Then I became angry. "Damn it! DAMN IT! DAMN IT!"

Not him. Not here. Not now.

Not ever.

It was Oliver, son of James and Olivia, with the blood of my accursed brother running in his veins. I didn't want him to see me like this.

Even worse was what I could see in his eyes - pity and mercy.

At that moment, he looked so much like Thor.

Oliver nimbly climbed onto the wagon and took the knife from Sophie's hand. The fact she so willingly surrendered it to him said much. Then Oliver used the knife to free me from my bonds.

"Gaow," he told me. It was supposed to be "go".

Then Oliver and Sophie jumped to the ground.

I turned my head and glared at Sigmund. "I'll leave," I warned him, "but I will return."

Sigmund shook his head. And then he changed. Oh, he still looked like Sigmund, but now the other spirit that was intertwined with Sigmund had become ascendant.

It was a much older spirit.

A Strange spirit.

"Why, Loki?" he asked me with an exasperated shake of his head. "What has Midgard ever given you besides defeat, pain, and humiliation? Spare yourself that. Leave and don't return."

"Damn you, Stephen!" I said tightly. "Sigmund is mine! I brought you two together so you could protect him! One day, he will rule this world!"

"No, he won't," Stephen-Sigmund said with a shake of his head. "The Sorcerer Supreme doesn't rule. He serves a greater cause."

I sneered at Stephen. "Is that your plan for Sigmund? A red rag around his shoulders, an ancient bauble on his chest, and a life spent standing guard over this muddy globe while others wield real power? I will make him more than that!"

Stephen's smile was subtly different from Sigmund's. It is the smile of an older man, learned and vastly experienced. Then, in mid-smile, it all changed.

Stephen Strange had returned to his rest. Sigmund was himself once again.

"Let's go," Sigmund said to his friends. If the moments he'd lost when Stephen Strange took control disturbed him, he showed no sign of it. I was the one who'd made sure that Stephen and Sigmund would be bound together, but even I was unnerved at how seamless that binding seemed to have become.

Sophie's cloak was neatly folded on the ground. Sigmund picked it up, shook it open, and then placed it around Sophie's shoulders. She smiled her thanks at him.

Thor - dammit, I meant Oliver - grinned wordlessly and put his arms around his friends' shoulders.

Then they left.

Within a few hours, I was able to clumsily crawl down from the wheel. My arms and legs hurt, and I was shaking, but I could stand and walk.

Cringing at every untoward sight and sound - I feared that Zarathos would return - I slowly and painfully worked my way to the nearest docks. My earlier plan of stealing a boat was still a good one.

But at the docks, I paused.

Really, there was one more conversation I needed to have.

Adjacent to the docks, there was a pile of abandoned ballast rock. I chose some suitable stones, stacked them, and then sat cross-legged before the simple cairn.

The dockside traffic immediately adjusted itself to slip around me. Some Blood sailors and dock-workers looked at me askance, not sure why someone who wasn't Blood wished to find the wisdom of the Old One. However, the consensus opinion seemed to be that I should be left alone.

It didn't take long for that bastard Logan to appear.

"I didn't expect this," Logan growled at me.

We were on the highest hill of a heavily-treed ridge. The ridge overlooked a broad river. Down in the valley below, there was a farming village. A river-boat and a few canoes were tied off to a single dock. Fields had been hacked out next to the village from the otherwise all-encompassing woods. The few huts and outbuildings that made up the village were enclosed by crude earthen fortifications.

There were tiny figures working in the fields. In a minuscule yard, a woman and her daughter were churning butter. A boy-child was minding a few sheep. A boy and a girl were fishing from the dock.

Logan was next to me, sitting in an outcrop of weathered stone that was protruding from the ridge-spine. He was gnawing on a young shoot of grass as he examined me skeptically.

I'd found Logan in a place far more wild than civilized. That seemed right. He's always been more animal than man.

"It's been a while," I said to him.

He nodded. "I was alive back then. It was an infinity stone problem."

I shrugged dismissively. "Back then, it seemed as if there was always a problem involving the infinity stones."

Logan considered me for a while. "So what do you want, Loki?"

"To talk. About Sigmund."

Logan shrugged. "So talk."

"What are your plans for him, Logan?"

That seemed to surprise him. "What the hell makes you think... Oh, I get it. There has to be a plan, right? A plot?"

"By the blood of my fathers!" I snarled. "Of course there is a plot, you dolt!"

Logan gave me a very flat look. "You know, you talk mighty big for someone who just spent the last few days screaming for mercy. Tell you what, Loki, I'm not pulling your boy's strings. Hell, I'm not messing with any of the kids. I just have a sneaking idea that I know what's going to happen."

Then he continued. "So what's gonna happen can be put down to fate. And here's a hint, Loki: don't screw with fate. Fate screws back. Like with what happened to you recently."

I felt something cold crawl down my back.

"What are you..." I began.

"Get lost," Logan said.

I jolted back to awareness by the Nyack docks.

It was all I could do not to kick Logan's ridiculous stack of stones into the sea. But I was surrounded by Blood and I'd gone almost an entire half-day without dying horribly. I felt like extending that streak of good fortune.

In the meantime, I was appalled to know that Logan - Logan of all people! - apparently knew something that I didn't. If you want proof of the fundamental unfairness of the world, there it was.

I was sure that Logan had spoken the truth to me. He is one of those tedious spirits who is bound by the truth. So I was missing something. Something to do with Sigmund. The players and their motives weren't what I thought they were.

Seething with frustration, I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to consider what to do next.

And that's when I saw the children again. They were further down the block, sitting in a crowd of likewise moronic youngsters, cheerfully watching a puppet show. It was a scene so wholesome that I wanted to vomit.

The children were Sigmund, Oliver, Sophie, Samantha, and May. Samantha was Sophie's sister. May was Oliver's older sister. May was the eldest and was presumably keeping an eye on the rest of the youngsters. All of them except for Sigmund actually lived well across the continent. I assumed they were visiting.

Actually, it was obvious that encountering the children was no coincidence. But I had no idea who was pulling the strings that had led me there. That infuriated me. I am Loki. I manipulate. I am not manipulated.

But then a thought suddenly occurred.

What puppet-play were the children watching?

I cast a modest spell of illusion to change my appearance. Then I approached closer.

The play's story was ancient. So ancient that the names of the key characters have been forgotten by this pathetic failure of a modern era. However, I still knew them. After all, I was there when the events in question actually took place.

The story was about a boy who rose to become a brave and just king. The boy was a warrior, a strategist, and - perhaps more than anything - an uniter. His kingdom eventually fell, but he created a legend that would last for millennia. The inspiration of his deeds would echo down through the centuries, challenging men to try and be something better.

That king was guided and served by a wise and powerful mage. If you considered the story closely, the king and the mage were two halves that made up a whole. They were actually something closer than brothers.

I hate that story. In all honesty, it makes me wonder what might have happened if things had been different between myself and...

No. The story of Arthur and Merlin is just a tale. Nothing more. It has no relevance to the story of Thor and Loki.

I took a long look at Oliver and Sigmund. They were sitting next to each other, smiling at that insipid play. To either side of them were Samantha and Sophie. Samantha beside Oliver. Sophie with Sigmund.

A perhaps-king and a perhaps-mage with their perhaps-wives? Wives who were daughters of a despised people?

What changes might such a thing portend?

I know that not all power is a matter of armies, magic, and treasure. There is a subtler power that is a matter of legend and belief. I'd hoped to grant Sigmund the first kind of power. But what if the other kind actually suited him better? What if, instead of forcing men to bend to their will, Sigmund and Oliver could wield influence in a manner that would actually be far stronger and last much longer?

Was that what the Norns - what that jackass Logan called 'fate' - were weaving? And if it was, did I really have grounds to object?

It was painful to ask, but how much of what I wanted for Sigmund was more about me than him? That was something to consider.

Turning on my heel, I began walking away. I was done. I would leave and not return. Regretfully, I'd even abandon my plans for Sophie.

Well... perhaps I would come back in a few centuries. I must admit, I was curious to see how the situation eventually worked out.

As I passed by my set of stacked stones, I saw that they were being reused. A Blood holder with pure white hair was seated before them, his eyes closed. As with me, the foot-traffic along the docks respectfully avoided him. A pair of Blood females stopped and bowed politely to the unseeing holder. One took an apple out of a market-basket and carefully put it between the old man and the stones. It would be a pleasant surprise for him when he was done with his meditation.

For my part, I just glared at that miserable pile of rocks.

Logan could go to Hel.

The holder sitting before the stones opened his eyes and glanced at me. Was that an amused expression on his face? And did one of his eyes now seem glazed over?

Overhead, I could hear a pair of birds - ravens, of course - calling to each other. It sounded like laughter.

"I'll let fate have this one," I said stiffly.

The holder chuckled. Then closed his eyes again.