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VVVVVVVVVV
In a Crowd of Thousands
Chapter 8
"Sanctuary"
Loki stared. First at the man, then at the portal behind him…
Then at his outstretched hand.
The next second, a dagger flashed into Loki's free left hand, and he gripped it tightly.
"Are you from the TVA?" he said through his teeth.
The other man didn't move—except his fingers kept quivering just slightly. And he glanced for an instant at the dagger before meeting Loki's gaze.
"No," the stranger said calmly.
Loki's eyes narrowed as he swept his gaze across him and the portal one more time. The stranger wore rustic clothes and boots, and the portal zapped and spun in a way that no portal at the TVA ever had. Still, Loki's jaw tightened, and he said nothing for a long time. But the other man…
The other man glanced past him—past him, at Jane. And a flicker crossed his eyes.
"You don't look the way they do," Loki finally decided. But he kept hold of his knife. "What kind of portal is that?"
"It isn't a portal through time, if that's what you're worried about," the other said, lowering his hand slightly. "Just space."
"And what's that, then?" Loki pointed with his knife toward a strange, ornate medallion resting against the man's chest.
"What, this old thing?" The man glanced down at it.
"Don't toy with me, I can feel it," Loki barked, his knuckles white on his knife. "Tell me what it is!"
"It's the Time Stone," the stranger answered. "I'm its guardian."
A shiver ran through Loki's frame, and he suddenly felt unstable—like lightning might burst from his hands, or a fissure might snap through his chest. Now, his own hand on his knife quivered.
"Hey, hey." The other man suddenly raised his hands and spoke in a different tone—almost gentle. And he held Loki's gaze unflinchingly. Like an equal.
No. Like something more than that.
"I can see that something's gone wrong, here," the man went on, his voice like deep, still waters. "You look tired. You're bleeding, your face is bruised, your clothes are dirty." He didn't move, and kept his hands where they were. "I came here because of what you said over the phone. You asked if I'd ever heard the word 'variant' before. Well, I have." He paused. "Is that what you're saying you are?"
"The question is," Loki pressed the side of his right hand against the rail of Jane's bed. "How did you learn that word?"
"My teacher," the stranger replied. "She was called the Ancient One. She let me in on a lot of secrets. And she led me to a library full of things that would blow most people's minds."
Loki hesitated.
"You're the Sorcerer Supreme."
The man lifted a shoulder.
"It sounds pretentious, but that's just the title of the person who holds onto this." He glanced down at the stone again. Again, Loki pressed his hand against Jane's railing, and adjusted his grip on his knife.
"And…" Loki said slowly. "Now what? You're going to make me come with you?"
"No," the man shook his head. "I'm inviting you into the New York Sanctum Sanctorum." He gestured behind him. "I live there. Come on through." He gave Loki a pointed look. "We'll have a drink, and you can explain to me why you picked up Jane's phone when you saw I was the one calling."
Loki swallowed. But the man just gazed at him a moment longer, then turned and stepped back through the portal.
Loki instantly frowned, lowering his knife. But no invisible force snatched at him and hailed him forward. The portal just waited, snapping and buzzing quietly. Through it, Loki could see part of a hallway, and a wooden floor.
He glanced back down at Jane.
She was still asleep. Breathing evenly. And he realized something.
By design or not, she had led him right to Dr. Strange—the one he truly needed to speak to. What was he doing still standing here?
Still, he hesitated.
The portal flickered in warning.
Loki vanished his knife, slipped the phone back into Jane's purse, and strode straight through the portal.
The next second, it snapped shut.
Loki stopped.
Deep, vast silence surrounded him—the wise, settled silence of an old library at a university. Tall ceilings, floors of beautifully inlaid wood, sculpted pillars. Dark hallways with just enough high lamplight to see by. Cool air that smelled of aged paper and black tea and wood polish. And as he stood there in that long hallway, glancing up and down at the rows of dark doors, the occasional glass case of artifacts, the broad landscape painting hanging on the wall…
That feeling of instability—the fracturing, the uncontrolled sparking in his hands—faded to nothing. He took a deep breath of the fragrant air, and his brow twisted for an instant. But something in his chest relaxed.
"Feel better?"
He blinked, glancing to his left. Dr. Strange stood there, watching him. Loki didn't answer, but managed a short nod.
"I never did like hospital rooms myself," Dr. Strange admitted. "There's something about the smell that makes me sick to my stomach."
"What did you want to say to me?" Loki evaded.
"I thought you were the one who wanted to talk to me," Dr. Strange reminded him with a raised eyebrow, and started off down the hallway, his leather boots quiet on the floor's surface. Loki hesitated for a moment, then followed him.
Strange didn't walk quickly. Instead, he strode with measured pace, like the steady ticking of a grandfather clock. Loki found himself matching it, evening and lengthening his own stride…
And as he did, he took another deep breath. Then another. When was the last time he had felt like this, walked with this carriage, breathed this way? It seemed familiar…
They came to the end of the hallway and emerged into a vast room with a high landing. A large, ornate circular window stood in the wall to their left, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The walls of this landing were turquoise, the floors marble. Various kinds of exotic weaponry hung upon the walls, and odd clothing and armor stood within glass cases. Dr. Strange led Loki to the top of a broad, grand staircase, and together, they descended it. It led them down to an impressive, circular entryway with wood-paneled walls, large paintings in beautiful frames, gorgeous inlaid floors, and various globes, urns and statues arranged in artistic places. To the left of the staircase waited a sort of parlor, with cushioned furniture and armchairs encircling an ancient fireplace, the mantle of which was adorned with old clocks, vases, idols, and something that looked like a human skull. A fire flickered quietly within the hearth, spilling warmth and subdued light out upon the rug. A grandfather clock in the corner ticked deeply—the only sound, next to the crackle of the fire, and Loki and Dr. Strange's footsteps.
Dr. Strange achieved the ground floor and turned to the right, following the side of the staircase down another, dimmer hallway. Cautiously, Loki followed, until Dr. Strange pushed through a door and entered a large kitchen.
All the cabinets here were black wood, with white marble countertops. Spice shelves hung neatly on the walls, packed with labeled bottles. Several antique tea chests, their vibrant wood gleaming, lined the counters. A plain table with two chairs sat in the center. Dr. Strange reached up to his throat and pushed at something there…
And his scarlet cape floated loose of him, like an entirely different being, and drifted back and away.
Loki instantly jerked to a halt, staring at it.
"What is that?"
"It's the Cloak of Levitation," Dr. Strange replied absently, taking a kettle from one of the cabinets, turning the handle on the sink and filling the kettle with water.
"Magic," Loki realized.
"Mhm," Dr. Strange grunted. "All the artifacts here are magic. So be careful what you touch."
"Noted," Loki muttered, eying the cloak as it drifted through the air like a ghost. Soon, though, the cape simply rested against the wall and went still, and Loki returned his attention to Dr. Strange.
He had taken down a simple stoneware teapot and two black cups, and was now scooping tea leaves from one of the chests into a metal tea ball with a small spoon, his hands quivering with every movement. Loki could see a hard line forming between his eyebrows as he worked.
"Why do that yourself?" Loki asked him. "Why not use magic?"
"It keeps me humble," Dr. Strange answered quietly. Loki raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Dr. Strange lowered the tea ball into the teapot, and soon, the kettle on the stove let out a long, spitting screech. Dr. Strange picked it up and gingerly poured the steaming water into the teapot, replaced the pot lid, and carried it over to the table. He also brought the two cups over and set them on opposite sides of the table.
"Please," he gestured to one of the chairs, then sat down himself in one of them.
Again, Loki hesitated. But in that moment, he had to confess to himself that this was exactly what he had been hoping for from this man: patience, openness, and time to listen. In fact, it was more than he had any right to expect. So, he drew closer, pulled the chair out, and carefully sank into it, folding his arms across his chest and facing the stranger directly.
The doctor sat there, his hands encircling the teacup, gazing right back at him.
"So." Dr. Strange took a slight breath. "There's apparently a story here. One I'm very curious about."
Loki swallowed, glancing again at that eerie cape, then back to Dr. Strange.
"Well…" he began slowly. "I must warn you that what I might tell you will sound…more than a little bizarre."
"I can handle it," Dr. Strange said coolly. "Go ahead."
Loki shifted in his chair.
"Then yes, I am what you'd call a 'variant,'" he said in a hard voice, despising that word even more now than he ever had. "Apparently, when the Avengers went back in time to find the Infinity Stones and stop Thanos, something went wrong. I got hold of the tesseract and escaped, instead of going back to Asgard with my brother. And almost instantly, I was captured by the TVA."
"Please explain that," Dr. Strange said. "What's the TVA?"
Loki's attention sharpened.
"You acted as if you already knew."
"I don't," Dr. Strange confessed, shaking his head. "Which is why I could assure you that I'm not part of it, whatever it is."
Loki gauged that reply for a moment, eyes narrowed, then decided to go on.
"They are…the Time Variance Authority," he said deliberately. "They function as guardians of the Sacred Timeline. If anyone varies from that particular timeline, that person is what you'd call 'pruned'—meaning banished to a black hole of chaos at the end of that timeline."
Loki paused, but Dr. Strange simply listened with silent intensity. Loki took a breath.
"But instead of being pruned, I was recruited. Recruited to stop another variant of myself who was eluding them," Loki said—once again battling back that storm of pain that writhed through his chest. He clenched his fists so Strange couldn't see, and kept going. "In the end, this other variant and myself came to the understanding that the TVA were behaving like deities when they had no right to do so, and we wished to discover who was truly behind it all. So we were pruned, went to that chasm of chaos at the end of time, enchanted the sort of…dragon…that guarded it…" Loki set his teeth. "And found our way to a citadel outside of time, where we discovered a man called He Who Remains. He told us about a timeline war, a war of universes long ago, which he ended by defeating all variations of himself, pruning everyone else, and essentially choosing his own timeline to be the Sacred Timeline. And he created the TVA to maintain that timeline."
"And…what did he want with you?" Strange asked.
Loki stopped, then looked at Strange keenly.
"When did I say he wanted me for anything?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Dr. Strange replied steadily. "A being that powerful, unhindered by any sort of time restriction, could easily direct and manipulate your every movement. You couldn't have even approached him without him wanting you to."
Loki wanted to grind his teeth—but at the same time, a wave of pure awe swept through him as he gazed back at the other man. Again, he saw it reflected in Strange's unearthly eyes: Equality. And something more than that.
"He did want me for something. Us," Loki confessed quietly, his gaze unfocusing and drifting away. "He wanted us to take over his position. To essentially run the TVA. But my…my companion…" Loki drew another breath. "She wanted revenge. She wanted to kill him. And no matter how I argued against it, how I begged her to listen to him, to me…" Loki's voice faded. "She deceived me, and sent me back to the TVA. And she killed him." Loki looked back up at Strange, feeling strength drain out of his shoulders, and weariness fill his frame. "Timelines instantly began branching out everywhere. No end to them. And on top of that, she sent me back to the wrong TVA." He shrugged helplessly. "No one there knew me at all. So I…" Loki swallowed again, reaching out and resting his fingertips against the lip of the cup. "I decided to start again. To find a timeline familiar to me, and to get help from there."
"Help?" Strange prompted softly. Loki met his eyes.
"He Who Remains warned us about his other selves," Loki said darkly. "That there were other, far more ruthless and dangerous versions of himself that would arise and fill the vacuum if anything happened to him."
"And that's what you fear," Strange realized. "That these variants of He Who Remains will start another war."
"Or enslave billions of people in hundreds of timelines," Loki added. "Or blow up whole planets, or who knows what else. All I know is…" Loki paused, and looked openly at him. There was no other way to say this. "This…This is my fault. All of it. I led her right to him. If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened."
For a long time, Dr. Strange said nothing. He just looked at Loki, his brilliant blue eyes studying every surface of his face—much as Jane Foster had done. And, just as with Jane, Loki held his breath and let him.
Then, Strange took a deep breath, and nodded once.
"I believe you."
Loki blinked, shock rippling through him.
"What—just like that."
"No," Strange said, picking up the teapot and pouring the tea—first in Loki's cup, then his own. The powerful scent of jasmine rose into the air. "For one thing, I've already noticed something happening in the multiverse—strange ripples, lances of energy just shooting randomly through time and space. Secondly, I believe you because you've just put names to several entities that we've only been theorizing about for several years now."
"We?" Loki prompted.
"Jane Foster and myself," Strange said plainly, setting the teapot down. "That is why you sought her out, isn't it?"
"Well…" Loki fought the squirming sensation in his gut as a glimmer of violet touched the edge of his mind. "Yes—well, somewhat. In truth, I was seeking you out. I learned that you were the Sorcerer Supreme, in possession of the Time Stone. But I didn't know you. I did know Jane. Of her. She was…my brother's lady for a time. I noticed that her timeline and yours intersected. I hoped she could make an introduction."
"It seems that she did, whether she knows it or not," Strange said wryly, taking a sip of his tea. "She's a brilliant woman. A genius, really. She came and found me after the second Snap, and began learning from me, and I from her. After researching in this library and the one in Kathmandu, we pieced together most of what you described: the timeline war, that pit at the end of time. We were forced to conclude that, since relative chaos had become cosmos, that there had to be an active force currently controlling and directing that cosmos, and that the End-of-Time pit had been created by that force—it was not part of the original makeup of any universe. What we didn't know was whether or not there was a sentient being behind all that action, or if it was a mechanism of some kind, like a clock. Which is why we referred to it as the Pendulum. But you call him He Who Remains. A person, and he's apparently very dangerous."
Loki didn't comment on that. That fact was obvious. A different question had risen in his mind—one that quieted his voice.
"What is wrong with her?"
Strange glanced at him.
"With Jane? Cancer. Or at least…" Strange sat back in his chair and sighed. "As near as anything can come to cancer."
"What exactly is 'cancer'?" Loki pressed. "Is it a plague?"
"It's a…" Strange rubbed his forehead, as if studying the best way to word it. "It's when the body naturally tries to renew itself, to build itself, but it does it wrongly. And instead of producing new, healthy tissue, it creates something that doesn't function, something that becomes malignant growths. And once those growths spread to the blood and the bones and the brain, then it's all over."
Loki stared at him.
"She's going to die."
That same flicker crossed Strange's eyes. He sighed again.
"I don't like her odds," he admitted. "Because, from what I've seen, her cancer isn't like any other form of cancer on earth."
"Why?" Loki asked sharply.
"The only thing I can think of," Strange mused. "And I've wracked my brains over this—is that, when she was possessed by the Aether, it did something to her. I really don't think a human being is designed to carry something like that around inside her body. I think its presence altered her DNA—destroyed something important that she needed to live. And now it's going to kill her."
For some reason, Loki's heart beat unsteadily again. He shifted in his seat.
"Can nothing be done?"
"Oh, something's being done," Strange assured him. "She's had three surgeries to remove tumors in various parts of her body, she's had a complete hysterectomy, and she's undergoing experimental treatments at St. Dominic's. Some of that has been successful. But I don't like to see her lying in a hospital bed again. She had been doing better…lately." Dr. Strange's voice had quieted, his attention drifting.
"She's your lady."
The words fell out of Loki's mouth—along with a strange, alien sensation in his chest.
"No," Strange shook his head, absently passing his hand over a broken watch on his left wrist. "Not as such."
Once more, Loki felt unbalanced. He glanced around the kitchen, his hands going cold, and started uneasily tapping his foot.
"So," he said, clearing his throat. "What's to be done, then?"
"Done?" Dr. Strange raised his eyebrows. "Well, in your case, the first thing to be done is to take care of the first three principles of survival."
"Which are?" Loki countered.
"Water, food, shelter," Strange replied, rising to his feet. "You don't have any of those at the moment, do you?"
Loki stared up at him, his brow suddenly twisting.
It must have shown on his face—something raw and scalded—because Dr. Strange's entire demeanor instantly transformed. He lowered his head, put out his right hand, and carefully rested it on Loki's shoulder. It was warm and heavy.
"Look," he said quietly. "I don't know what you've experienced…or how you're used to being received when you've approached people for help. But…" He looked at Loki frankly. "I once felt the same way you do right now: trapped. Lost. Out of resources. Exhausted. Literally cut loose from everyone and everything I'd ever relied upon. My very last resort turned out to be a place I never would have gone in a million years. And I sat outside that door, beating on it, for five hours. Begging them to let me in." He shook his head. "I'm not going to make you do that."
Loki, stunned to his core, swallowed hard. It hurt. Strange lightly patted his shoulder once, then beckoned to him.
"Come on, and bring your tea."
"Where are we going?" Loki managed, unsteadily climbing to his feet.
"There are ten bedrooms in this Sanctum, and only two of them are occupied right now," Strange said, leading the way out of the kitchen. "There's got to be at least one that'll suit you."
To be continued…
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