Loki could hardly credit that Odin had sent for him after these many months of being completely ignored by the Allfather. For the first few minutes, he could not commit to an emotional response. At first, he thought that someone must be trying to pull a cruel prank on him, and that his father had nothing to do with his summons after all. He then considered that no one was likely to provoke the Allfather in this way, even to see Loki shamed.
In light of this, Loki warred within himself: he was angry that his father could ignore him for months and then suddenly demand his presence like a common servant, but he was also still a young man who craved love and validation from his father. So much so, he found himself hoping desperately that he would be forgiven now or perhaps given the chance to redeem himself in his father's eyes.
Still in conflict, Loki decided that he should not hesitate and risk his father's anger, so he teleported himself directly from the library where the guard had found him and into the healing rooms. The sight that greeted him there was almost more than he could bear. Every trained healer within the house of Odin was scrambling about the healing chambers, trying to find a solution for a patient who lay shrouded on the table in the center of the room. The figure was covered over with a white sheet, but red blood was beginning to stain it in small patches all over. The image from the soul forge was enough to set Loki's mind spinning. He had never seen, in all his adventures and battles, even the image of a body so disfigured. It was difficult even to rationalize which shards of bone should belong where.
Unnoticed for the moment in the hustle and bustle, he drew close to the body and raised the corner of the sheet. He was greeted with a sight so horrible that he turned away and choked. "For the love of all the Gods!" he exclaimed aloud, "Why has no one put this thing out of its misery?" His exclamation drew the attention of his father, who leaned precariously against the wall, looking older and more burdened than usual.
"Loki! Do not say such things!" He roared and propelled himself up from his hunched position. He stumbled over to his younger son, looking decidedly un-regal. "My boy…" he whispered, "help me to save this person. There is something I must know."
"Father…" Loki breathed, shaking somewhere between dread and excitement. "I am no healer. I would not even know how to begin…"
"Son, there is a curse upon this person. No healing magic, no matter how strong seems to be affecting the wounds: only none of the practitioners of magic here seem to be able to understand how this can be."
Loki found himself to be intrigued, and strode over to the soulforge in order to inspect the floating image of the body more clearly. After tinkering with the image for a moment and casting a few spells, he could see the network of magic within the soulforge's image of the body… or the lack of one. Magic seemed to hover all around the body without flowing through it. Even those that cannot command magic should still have some power within themselves. Loki called for a healer to once again attempt to cast a spell of healing on the body. He watched as the magic reached towards the body in gentle tendrils of healing energy, represented before him in pale blue light. He also saw it stop short of touching the patient, and flow abruptly towards the figure's right wrist.
Gritting his teeth against the sight he was about to take in, he gingerly lifted the blanket away from the mangled right arm. There, on the wrist, he saw the heavy gold cuff. He reached across the body, and exposed another on the left wrist.
"Are there more of these?" He demanded. A healing maid nodded soberly, and pulled down the blanket to expose a matching gold torque around its neck. Steeling himself, he looked at the head of the person he was trying to save. Most of the flesh of the face was shredded, and what was not cut into ribbons was burned. The left eye was clearly no longer in the socket, and only tiny patches of grey tufts of hair remained on the head at all. He breathed deeply and slowly through his nose to contain his revulsion and, averting his eyes from the bloodied and burned face, he looked closer at the jewelry in question. Each one had a different strange runic symbol carved into its face, followed by a symbol they shared in common; three parallel lines like hatch-marks followed by a dot. He ran his fingers over the surface of the adornments, and was overcome by an intense sensation of wrongness. He shivered, and pulled his delicate fingers back into a fist.
The healing girl piped up next to him and said "I imagine whoever this is, they must be very wealthy and important, to have jewelry like that! It must be more than a pound of gold!"
"Oh, no." Loki stated. "I fear they are far more sinister in nature than that." With a flick of his hands, he summoned an ancient and dusty tome from the library vault, wherein he believed he had seen some of the runes.
"Where did you come by that?" the Allfather demanded. "That is a forbidden text on the darkest of magicks, hidden for millennia! The casting of any spell within that text is a crime punishable by death!"
"I should imagine so," Loki replied blithely. "Most unsavory. It was wise to keep it under lock and key. Pity that it can be summoned out of the vault."
He continued flipping through the pages almost idly, showing no concern at his father's outrage whatsoever.
"Here!" he exclaimed at last, standing up straighter and resting the tome partially propped up on the sick bed. "This symbol," he pointed at the second symbol on the torque "is 'Gate' in a long forgotten language of magic. It can also mean 'Barred' or 'Blocked.' His finger skimmed the page again briefly before continuing. "This first symbol on the necklace means 'Will power' or 'Mind.' The symbol on the right hand means 'Magic.' On the left, it means, 'Body' …. Or perhaps 'Healing?' I think it means the body's natural ability to heal."
He looked up at them with a triumphant expression, but the healers continued to stare at him blankly. "These pieces are part of a spell for enslaving a being of great power," he continued looking annoyed. "Most require only dominance of the mind, and the torque blocks the powerful creature's will to resist orders. Some, who are very powerful in magic, must have a second band, to inhibit their magic from fighting back even though the mind is empty. Only once in history before this tome was crafted and subsequently banned, was a third band needed. The magic within this creature was so profound and powerful, it had to be kept perpetually injured and numb within the body, so that no part of his ability to fight the subjugation could overcome."
Odin looked grave and as elderly as the universe as he asked, "How can they be removed?"
Loki scanned the page of his book for a second before looking downcast and replying, "They cannot." He closed the book with a thud that spouted a foul smelling stream of dust into the air, and banished it again with a wave of his hand. "They can only be removed by the hand that placed them." He muttered, and began to pace the room.
He knew he should be focusing on helping his father and regaining trust, but his mind began to wander and resentment prickled him, as it often did. Why should he try to help Odin, when the man had rejected him? Why should he continue to try to prove himself, when his brother had been preferred all his life?
He began to list the many ways in which Thor had been given preference over him, when he stopped abruptly in his tracks. Loki found himself reliving his father's speech at the coronation as it fueled his frustration, when he remembered; "So long entrusted with this mighty hammer, Mjolnir, forged in the heart of a dying star. Its power has no equal as a weapon to destroy, or a tool to build. A fit companion for a king." Wavering, Loki clenched and unclenched his fists. He might have an answer, and he might have to call on his brother to achieve it. He continued the path of his pacing, until he stopped before his father and turned.
"Father, the writing of that text and the defeat of the black sorcerers occurred before the creation of the star weapons, did it not?" Loki asked, peering up at his father's face while trying to keep his head tilted down. Odin nodded his head slowly, wondering where Loki was going with this. "The histories state that no weapon forged by man or god was powerful enough to shatter the bonds… at that time. Mjolnir might be strong enough."
Odin called out an order for Thor to be brought to the healing rooms, and Loki began to inspect the unusual manacles once again. He turned them this way and that around the broken limbs, looking for additional symbols and finding none. Each time he touched them with his delicate hands, he felt a sickness within him, like putrefaction within his soul. The magic summoned to create these must have been beyond evil.
At length, Thor arrived in the healing room, and listened as the others explained what Loki had described in simpler terms. Loki continued to ponder the bonds as Thor loudly and brazenly proclaimed that he could remove the bindings, no matter how strong they were. He strode to the table, gathering Mjolnir in his hand, and grasped the necklace roughly.
"Stop!" Loki hissed and placed his hand between the hammer and the necklace. "If you break this one, you will free the mind before the body is remotely repaired. If this person does not die of the pain they cannot feel right now, they will be driven mad by it!"
"Which one do I take off then?" Thor huffed looking insulted.
Loki pondered this. It was his natural instinct to reach for magic. The healers could begin to try to save this ravaged mess if their spells could reach it, but something made him hesitate. This… being…. had apparently called for Heimdall's help. Chances were that if they appealed to Asgard for help, they were an Asgardian, and all Asgardians naturally heal very quickly. Making a snap, spur of the moment decision, he pointed at the left arm. Thor grasped the cuff… or more appropriately manacle in his hand and tapped it harshly with Mjolnir.
Nothing happened. Thor looked angry and frustrated to Loki, like a child about to throw a fit… but he imagined the strength that Thor possessed when he was acting like a child might come in handy right about now. The soulforge showed that the heart rate of the prostrate body had become erratic. Whoever they were, they were dying. Thor lifted the hammer again, and slammed it down onto the gold ornament, which let out a shriek like a dying beast. Cracks began to form in it, thin spiders webs of damage reaching out across the surface. Thor lifted the hammer again, and thrust it down with all the strength of his bulging muscles. The manacle exploded into a fine powder, and fell from the wrist of the patient as dust.