Note: In which I play fast and loose with mythology, geography, and possibly natural history. I regret nothing.

Chapter Eight

The next morning's field trip was composed of the group from the night before, plus Annie and Mitchell. Loki was more grateful than usual for their company.

To the obvious discomfort of Tony Stark, and the slightly better-concealed anxiety of Thor, Loki asked to go back into the forest at exactly the same place they had the night before. He actually had a purpose in this: he wanted to see whether local magic had healed the trees injured by Coulson.

Coulson, who seemed entirely unconcerned, waved the group to join him on one side of the clearing. "Here's the first one I marked last night."

"And the mark is still visible?" Loki asked, surprised.

"It's still fresh," Coulson replied, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the tree. Loki walked over to join him. "See?"

Loki saw, and what he saw interested him greatly. He had been confident the tree would be healed this morning, but not only was it not, the wood exposed by Coulson's knife was still perfectly fresh and damp with sap. This far from the centre of the angry land-magic, perhaps the tree could not be healed. The wound still should at least have been drying, and the exposed wood discoloured, by this time. Loki said so.

"I was thinking the same thing," Coulson agreed, as he stepped aside for the others to have a look. "You don't suppose it can't heal itself at all?"

"I don't understand it," Loki admitted.

"Perhaps it's the iron," George spoke up suddenly. Everyone looked at him and he coloured. "Well, it might be," he said defensively, pushing his spectacles up his nose.

"Tell us about iron," Loki requested.

"There are stories... Iron is supposed to harm some kinds of magical creatures, like fairies," George began. At a big-eyed look from Stark, George added, "I've never actually met a fairy, I'm not sure they even exist. Or maybe they've just... gone somewhere else. The point is, fairies were supposed to represent old magic in Britain, from before the days of iron and steel, and they never adapted to be able to deal with it. I'm just now wondering whether this magic Loki talks about, the magic in the land, is the same kind of thing. Maybe it's been driven underground by human technology and devices."

"That might explain why it's so angry," Mitchell contributed.

"Perhaps," Loki said slowly, his mind whirling. It occurred to him that he had, perhaps, been given an opportunity for a peace offering. He reached up and laid his right hand flat over the wound, felt magic and an apology he hoped could be understood flow from himself to the tree. After a moment he took his hand away. The mark was gone.

"Wow," Stark said quietly.

Rather unexpectedly, Coulson looked around at the trees and said matter-of-factly, "I'm sorry I hurt you last night. I didn't understand what I was doing, and I apologize." There was, perhaps, more to Coulson than he generally chose to reveal.

They continued through the forest, following Coulson's marks on the trees and Loki healing them as they went. At a certain point Loki began to smell rotting vegetation again, but the sensation was much weaker than the night before.

"So perhaps, as you guessed, the sorcerer who cursed Steve returned last night," Thor suggested. "We have been preoccupied with our concern for Steve, so we were not looking for further activity on his part."

In Loki's opinion this was neglectful in the extreme, but he did not say so to his brother. He merely remarked, "It would be good to know his purpose in returning."

"Oh, we'll get into that," Stark said grimly.

Thor, who was watching Loki with what seemed like more than merely brotherly concern, was the first to notice when Loki began to sense the other magic. His head twitched as the buzzing began, not at the level of the night before, but loud enough to be annoying.

"Loki- " Thor began, his tone apprehensive. He stopped when Coulson, with a smile noticeably more friendly than his usual meaningless one, said,

"Hello, Annie."

"Hello, Mr. Coulson," Annie replied demurely.

"Hey, Annie," Stark nodded. "That the background magic again, Loki?" His tone was perfectly matter-of-fact, as though he had never once suspected exposure to powerful magic would cause Loki to reveal himself as a villain after all.

Loki nodded. "It is."

"Still pissed off at us?" Stark asked.

"Yes. But not as angry as it was last night. Can everyone please be silent? I will see if I can communicate with it."

The rest of the group was quiet as Loki stood still, eyes closed, concentrated on his breath going in and out of his lungs, let his mind go quiet, and waited for the magic to speak to him.

After a few moments, images began to come into his mind. A figure in a green cloak, unspecific, more like a drawing than anything, as though the non-human sentience in contact with him was unable to accurately envision a human.

Or whatever this sorcerer was.

The image in his head changed jerkily, the figure moving back and forth, eyes cast down and then up. It took Loki a moment to understand what he was being told:

The mysterious sorcerer was looking for something.

Cautiously, he created a mental image of his own, also of a green-caped figure searching the clearing. It was immediately crowded out by one of the sketch-like figure performing the same movements. Loki took that as confirmation he had correctly interpreted the message he had received.

And then the images in Loki's mind scrambled and changed, the image of the green-caped figure joined by others, all of whom seemed to be fighting. The other figures fell and the green-caped one stood over them, apparently victorious. The buzzing in Loki's head became almost unbearable.

The final image in this set showed a crude red-white-and-blue figure collapsing to the ground. Loki, hoping he had correctly interpreted the feeling of anger, visualized Steve, in his Captain America costume, surrounded by everyone in the current group, all of whom were bending solicitously over him.

The buzzing dropped to bearable levels. Loki exhaled in relief. He tried one more image: Thor holding the green-caped figure by the scruff of the neck. As he visualized it, the buzzing changed into a sort of vibrating hum. Loki took that to mean the sentience was in favour of the Avengers catching and stopping the mysterious sorcerer.

It would be worth trying to figure out, later, why England would care.

The hum faded, as though whatever had been communicating with him was finished "speaking." He opened his eyes and looked around.

"I am no closer now to knowing what the mysterious sorcerer looked like," he said without preamble, "but it seems he is looking for something. And the local magic is very angry about it."

"So it's not mad at us?" Stark asked.

"It would appear not. Our communication was very crude, but when I expressed that we were trying to capture this person, the sensation of antagonism went away. I received an impression this sorcerer was already known to the… intelligence behind the magic, that he has done harm before, to other humans, perhaps a long time ago. What I don't know is why this would matter."

"'Why it would matter'?" Stark repeated slowly. With a sinking sensation, Loki remembered he was a focus of suspicion, and he needed to watch every word that came from his mouth.

"I meant, to the magic," he explained patiently. "If I am correct and I was in communication with the land itself, why would it care, or even notice, what a few brief mortals do to one another?"

"You, on the other hand- " Stark prompted.

Loki was quite aware this was a poor time for him to lose his temper. With difficulty, he bit back a number of sharp rejoinders and said stiffly, "I, on the other hand, am doing my best to determine what happened to your friend Steve, and assist him." And then, because he couldn't help it, he added, "I might point out that I have lived on this realm for several months without harming anyone apart from ill-disposed supernatural creatures. If, however, you think your mission would progress more safely and effectively without my help, I would be delighted to leave you and return to my home and my job. Except, oh yes, you seem to have destroyed my abode, and convinced my employer that I am some sort of supervillain, so both those routes are now closed to me. Shall we continue to discuss which of us can be trusted, or should we do something more productive?"

Oh, look. He had lost his temper after all. Well, as long as he was at it, he might as well storm off, too. Loki shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to Mitchell.

"Would you be so kind as to return my belongings to the helicarrier? I will meet you back there after I have taken a look around, to see whether I can detect any other signs of our mysterious sorcerer." Mitchell nodded without a word- possibly he realized Loki was so angry that further speech might well cause him to do something humiliating, like burst into tears. Loki jerked his shirt off over his head and handed that to Mitchell as well- he had no desire to end up trapped in the garment and have to crawl ignominiously out the neck hole.

Then, before anyone else could speak, he transformed himself into a raven and flew away.

He stayed down among the trees at first, in case Stark decided to give chase: he was quite sure Iron Man was not maneuverable enough at low speeds to cope with the forest cover. He permitted himself a vindictive mental image of Stark flying head-first through the trunk of one of the great oak trees. The thought of Stark's red-and-golden feet kicking helplessly made him croak with laughter.

And then, because as a raven he was still intelligent enough to know when he was behaving badly, Loki began to feel ashamed of himself. If Tony Stark, or anyone else, did not trust him without reservation, exactly whose fault was that?

Well, the only thing to do was conduct his aerial search and hope he found something useful, so he could at least pretend he had not really just flown off in a fit of temper. Loki flapped his way up to a higher altitude and then soared on outstretched wings, circling to orient himself. Far away to the north he could see Bristol, and resisted the urge to fly in that direction to see, with his own eyes, what had been done to his home. There was no purpose in doing so, it would only make him angry again, but in the aftermath of his outburst he found himself feeling quite lonely, and he wanted to see the house again.

No. There was no time, and it would serve no purpose.

The vast helicarrier hung in the sky between Bristol and himself, but still several miles away. It would be easy to find again when he needed to return. Loki turned to the south, aiming to fly in a large circle that would bring him back within range of the helicarrier. Because he was using self-generated magic for this transformation, Loki knew he could only maintain the raven shape for so long, and would have to budget enough power to get safely back.

As the helicarrier fell further astern, Loki concentrated mostly on the trees and brush below him. He was not sure what he was looking for, but was sensitive to magic and hoped he would recognize something useful if it was there to see.

After some little time, however, Loki noticed something in the distance, to the southwest: a large, smoothly-rounded mound, with a projection on top that seemed to be the remains of a tall building. He was initially drawn by simple curiosity but, as he flew closer, he became gradually aware of the taste of bronze on the back of his tongue.

There were domiciles, signs of agriculture, and trees and bushes growing right up to the base of the mound, but the hill itself was grassy and bare. The only place Loki could find to land was the ruin, which seemed to be the remains of a place of worship, roofless and open to the sky. He flew to the top of the high wall, landed, and folded his wings.

The sensation of bronze in his mouth was now accompanied by the same phantom smell of rotting vegetation, both even more powerful than they had been the night before. This was unpleasant even in raven form, but as he preened his feathers and tried to appear an innocent corvid, Loki realized the headache that accompanied his more extended efforts at casting magic was no longer in evidence. Apparently, he had successfully scavenged sorcery. Both the raven form and Loki within it croaked in amusement at the idea.

By this time, Loki had forgotten all about his anger at Stark: he was affected to some degree by the form he occupied, and the raven lived in the moment. Loki knew he should go back and tell the others what he'd discovered, but- he argued to himself- as yet he had really not found anything at all. Evidence, yes, that the sorcerer had been here, probably not long ago. But nothing more.

Both Loki and the raven wanted more.

The ruin was, to all intents, a roofless rectangular tower. Loki peered over the wall he perched on, into the well-like interior. The shape of the walls created an updraft as air entered through the open doorways below. Loki spread his wings, testing the strength of the rising air.

Then he closed them and stepped over the side, dropping into the well formed by the stone walls.

The drop was exhilarating, matched only by the sensation of the updraft catching him as he spread his wings. His stomach kept going as his wings arrested his fall, and he let out a croaking exclamation of delight as he found himself hanging in the air. No matter how many times Loki transformed into a bird, he never got tired of the sensation of winged flight. He flicked a wingtip upward and let himself spiral down, then leveled out and hung in the air as the updraft lifted him. As his head cleared the top of the tower, he repeated the movement with the other wing and spiraled down in the opposite direction.

And then he remembered that Steve was depending on him to learn about this sorcerer, and resisted the impulse to play any longer.

He landed on the broken stone floor of the ruin, fluttered his wings closed, shuffled his feet, and looked around with bright eyes. Sunlight streamed through the open arches of the windows and doorways, motes of dust danced through the air.

And, in one dark corner, the wall was glowing.

Loki tilted his head on one side and then the other, trying to get a better look at the corner. The position of a raven's eyes was useful for spotting danger from almost any direction, but made focusing on one object difficult. Even so, Loki knew that anyone but a sorcerer would be unable to see the glow at all.

He walked closer, head turned, the other eye closed to help him concentrate. There was definitely something there.

Or, more accurately, not there. It wasn't easy to create a hiding place that was in plain sight, but it was even more difficult to create a hiding place that wasn't there at all. Loki admitted himself impressed: he was quite sure he could not do such a thing himself, at least not on this realm. Once again, he reconsidered his opinion of the mysterious sorcerer: his spell upon Steve had not had the effect he apparently anticipated, but this one seemed to be working very well.

However, having spotted the magical portal, Loki knew the sorcerer would return. It was late morning, or perhaps early afternoon. The sorcerer had attacked Steve at night. He had been active in the forest last night. Therefore, it made sense he would hide during the day.

The first question was, did he have another lair, or was he behind the glowing portal?

The next was, should Loki hurry back to the helicarrier and tell Thor and his comrades what he had learned, or should he stay, and see what else he could find out?

The sensible thing to do was to go for help.

Ravens are not terribly sensible birds.

~oOoOo~

It was not at all difficult to get through the portal, not when you were yourself a fairly skilled sorcerer in the body of a very clever bird. It helped that Loki had been using magic stolen from the site to maintain his bird form: he was attuned to the sorcery maintaining the hiding place.

It was nearly as easy as stepping onto the platform for the Hogwarts Express.

The lair gave the impression of a further room in the ruin-or perhaps in some imaginary castle- windowless and lit by glowing sconces in the walls, and by a fire that gave light but no heat in the fireplace that dominated the back wall. The furnishings were of heavy wood: a table in the middle of the room, covered in books and papers; another bearing various artifacts and the remains of a meal; an oaken chair; a bookcase laden with heavy volumes. Loki received the impression of a room remembered, not imagined.

One would have to be extremely sensitive to magic to be able to tell it was all an illusion, but of course one would also have to be extremely sensitive to magic to be able to find one's way inside in the first place.

The mysterious sorcerer was not in the lair, and dust had settled over his belongings. Perhaps he had been absent longer than Loki thought, in which case he must be able to create or control a great deal of magic to be able to maintain all this. Loki flapped his wings and hopped onto the table to examine the books and papers. He walked up and down, scuffling the papers about with his feet. They were real, apparently brought here for further study, written in an elaborate script Loki could not read, at least not as a raven: the position of his eyes, for one thing, was still an issue, and it was very hard to concentrate. He briefly considered resuming his Aesir form, then rejected the idea: if he was surprised by the sorcerer, there was some chance he could bluff his way out of the situation if he pretended to be a cheeky raven. Perhaps the sorcerer would even accept him as a familiar. In an apparently-human form, he would have a great deal of explaining to do.

Particularly considering his clothes were, by now, presumably back in the helicarrier.

Bird form it was, then.

He used his heavy beak to turn over the documents and scuffle gently at the books. All of them were very old, made of rag-paper rather than the more fragile wood-pulp variety, the books bound with heavy leather.. Even under bird-feet the paper felt rich and smooth, and it had held the ink extremely well. Loki marveled at the creations of these primitive mortals who died so long ago.

George had some knowledge of these matters, he remembered. George might be able to read one of these pages, if Loki took it back to him.

Folding a sheet of heavy rag paper was no joke when all you had to work with were a beak and clawed feet, but Loki managed it. Borrowing a little extra magic, he secreted the paper in a sort of inter-dimensional hiding place he would be able to access later. Possibly because it had already been in an inter-dimensional hiding place, the paper went willingly. On impulse, Loki grabbed a book of manageable size and stuffed it in after.

Then he flew to the other table to examine the artifacts: a battered iron helmet, what looked like a shirt made of chain, heavy iron gloves. Loki walked around and around them, consumed by curiosity. This was clearly protective gear. Was the sorcerer preparing for battle? The armor was very old. Had he worn it before, many years ago, when the iron was bright and newly forged? Or had it been stolen from its rightful owner?

Loki next turned his attention to the metal plate that held the remains of food: half a piece of bread and some hard yellow cheese. He poked them experimentally with his beak, and decided they had always been coarse, but had been abandoned long enough to dry out entirely.

Even so, they would be a suitable meal for a raven and, since being a bird was exceedingly hungry work, Loki was tempted. However, he was experienced enough to know better than to eat anything in a place such as this: that was how the unwary found themselves ensnared forever. He controlled the urges of the bird form, but he knew it was time to leave: eventually, the animal form would assert itself physically, even though his mind remained his own.

(Loki knew this from experience, having spent more than a week as a fox on Svartalfheim after one of Thor's very early expeditions went wrong. The group had split up to evade pursuit, and Loki arrived at the Bifrost site to discover, to his horror, that the others had left without him. The Svartalfar, apparently suspecting one of the Aesir had been left behind, had guarded the site so closely and hunted him so persistently that Loki was unable to take back his own form long enough to call Heimdall, or attract the attention of any of Thor's ill-organized rescue parties. By the end of his sixth day as a fox he was gladly eating carrion, which made him miserably ill after the Allfather had finally come in person to find him and he resumed his own form. He was too sick and too grateful to torment himself with the question of whether Father would have taken so long to come to Thor's rescue. Indeed, even years later, when he was firmly of the belief that his father did not love him at all, he had found some comfort in the memory of how angry Odin had been at Thor for leaving Loki behind, even by accident. The tongue-lashing had been mostly couched in terms of how a prince of Asgard should behave, but the Allfather's grip on Loki's hand as he shouted had hinted that, perhaps, it was not solely concern for honour that made Father so angry.)

Loki had not been in this form long enough for the raven to make demands upon him, but it was definitely time to get back to the others. He took a final look around, memorizing as much of the room as possible. Then he stepped back through the glowing portal, unfurled his wings, and flew off into the falling dark.