A fugue by O. Borson, arranged for quartet by L. du Vide
Gladsheim's gold-plate doors open on soundless hinges. I walk into glistening splendor with my heart between my teeth. The two great councils rise from decorated platforms high above me to honor my presence, terrible as sentinels in their scarlet and emerald. Beyond the councils and the nobles' equally decorous gallery, opposite the expansive free archways where the common people may shove each other aside for a view, is the dais with the citadel's infamous Twelve Seats. Odin's chief advisors. The most powerful men and women in the King's service.
Frigga squeezes my left hand. I've stalled at the threshold.
At her prodding, we walk forward into the blistering heat from a thousand thousand eyes.
The councils find their benches without breaking the anxious hush. The nobles smile and nod their heads. Frigga smiles back at them but I seem to have forgotten how. The entire chamber is a buzzing fever dream. The twelve golden braziers lining the hall as immense titans flood Gladsheim with a glittering unreal light. Polished gold walls sparkle with reflections within reflections. The intricate flooring gleams brassy as Frigga and I cross over intertwining knots larger than my suite. The Twelve Seats loom ahead in garish white shadows.
All of Asgard has turned out to hear how Odin-King intends to punish the vault thieves. I am sweating under my illusions. Frigga releases my hand and we part company before the dais. Tyr's mouth pinches a smile as I wade through the oceanic spectacle to stop below Odin-King's illustrious sweeping chair.
To call this chair a throne would be wrong; Gladsheim is as close to Greek Democracy as absolute-divine-monarchistic Asgard ever gets. A court-approved issue is presented by the King or a chief advisor, and the city decides. The king can be out-voted, refused, and, theoretically, even overthrown by Gladsheim.
My insides are a nest of vipers.
As second prince, I had privilege to my own Seat but not to my own division. I could vote on all issues brought before Gladsheim but any I raised had to pass through either Odin or, more usually, through the High Council's Chieftain Forseti.
I have never spoken at Gladsheim before. Now, not only will I have to submit before the entire city in attempt to sway them toward a radical plan, but I will have to do so while in character as the Allfather. Worse, I still have no idea how in Nine Godless Realms I'm supposed to prove anything I say is true.
I see Frigga smiling at me from her place in the noble's gallery. I set my shoulders.
There's nothing left to do but try.
"My Lord and Lady Chieftains," I begin. "Councils. Citizens of Asgard. Grievous news has come to me of late. I will not waste time with titles. You know who I am—" the crushed-up shaking part of me that is Loki wants to add, and if not, you've got bigger problems than I can help you with— "I have not come before you to grovel or kneel. I am direct descendant of Buri the First God, son of his first son, and in this dark hour I am also
/
—Your most grateful host," I gush to the Queen of Elves, all honeyed velvet. She extends a fine-boned hand for my kiss. Against the dark sanctuary foliage of Frigga's garden Queen Daina is luminous.
"You win me for surprises." Her violet-rimmed yellow eyes crinkle at the edges. "I expected the Aesir leader from centuries ago, who blusters and shouts."
Her party has dispersed, leaving us to talk politics in complete privacy. The elves may not distinguish between politics and pleasure, but they are even more monarchistic than we Aesir. The Elves don't bother with courts. Daina is Alfheim. She and I will talk, and the alliance will be decided.
"That Aesir leader is long gone," I say, laying on the charm with a smarmy smile that has never and would never belong on Odin's face. "He has no idea what I'm getting up to in his guise. I fear we are no longer so close, he and I. My fair Elven friend, I hope that you permit me to humbly request for your presence at supper tonight. I am
/
—Lord of everything and better than this joke who calls himself a king."
King Nibelung III of Nithavellir bristles at my introduction. His fellow Dwarves grow still. They are little more than shadows in a golden room stacked with aromatic confections, dark-upon-dark in the midst of so much gleaming culinary treasure.
I add, sweeping an arm to encompass the ready-to-burst Royal Hall, "Eat your fill of this feast and be ashamed, for you cannot match me in wealth or stature."
"A fine feast it is," Nibelung III allows with a grudging cough. He considers me from below a bejeweled headdress. "But your tables are all old, and we Dwarves do not like old tables. If we sit down, I am afraid the wood will rot out from under us and we will be covered in this foul swill Odin Asgard King thinks is wine."
"This isn't going very well, is it?" Odin's attendant Sigg murmurs from my left.
"No," I say, and clap my hands together. "This is going splendidly. Sigg! Tell the cooks to throw out this garbage and reset the table immediately. Let us show these underbred dwellers of the dark that our cooks are the best in all nine realms, and will have a second feast displayed within the hour to their everlasting shame."
The Dwarven King shakes his head. Solemn refusal spreads through the party, until each Dwarf looks as if he would rather eat a live jarlslug than suffer my hospitality
/
—which is necessary for the survival of our realm," I explain to my audience at Gladsheim. Sweat is pricking behind my ears. I can't move to wipe it off. Nine pairs of eyes stare down at me from the dais. "Loki confessed to me before he died that his treasons were not purely for personal gain," I recite. "He did not act alone. He claimed to have invaded Midgard at the behest of another, whose forces have now succeeded in that task which my late son failed, and taken a very powerful weapon from our vault here on Asgard. This other's . . . name was told to me, by Loki. I have every confidence that the name is correct. We are now at war with Thanos."
Disbelief boils from the councils and commons in Gladsheim. Voices raise to cast this declaration aside. It is a mark to my credit that I love my second son Loki, they say, but I should know better than to believe anything ever uttered by that monstrous backstabbing coward.
They are furious.
They don't believe me.
I shut my eyes.
They think this is
/
"Nonsense," Nibelung III spits. The Dwarven King takes a challenging step backward, toward the palace gates and the bifrost and, farther, Nithavellir. "Wish-you treat with us, Odin One-Eye? Since Asgard is too well incompetent to conduct the simplest meal, how could I trust an oaf such as you for talks? We will feast at Nithavellir instead." A grave insult.
Sigg flinches. Lord Aumdyn puts a threatening hand on his sword's hilt. I wave him off. My court glances from me to Nibelung, waiting to see how I will take this.
"A Dvergr feast?" I say, laying on the sneer. "You must be joking. Very well, I accept. My court will come with me to Nithavellir that we may eat your realm's wealth in a single sitting."
"Your Majesty?" Svaldir tries to head off what looks like a budding interrealm war.
He's wrong, of course. Nithavellir and Asgard are already at war. Nibelung's pride will see to that.
/
"War, smwar. Is this all you talk of?" Queen Daina complains over after-supper sweets while I pour us both more drink than we—strictly—need. "I haven't forgotten, you are aware, that our realms were supposed to be joined by now. Do you remember that, Odin-King?" She purrs my name.
No. I don't. I, Loki, wasn't privy to that little morsel of information. So . . . Thor was meant for Smirna? The heirs to two kingdoms, united in unholy matrimony. Ha! What my poor not-brother would think, if he knew. A fiendish smile slips out from under from my Allfather impersonation. I can't help it. "Which of them would be more horrified, do you expect?"
Daina laughs. "Yours. Mine at least found him fetching. I always thought a good compromise would be for both to keep lovers on the side. We Alfr do not shy from eunuchs the way you Aesir do."
Wine goes down the wrong pipe. I cough. How did Thor and Smirna become eunuchs?
Daina brushes her long tapering fingers up my arm. "You still do not approve. But yes, naturally. Why, that there can be no accidents? What, with the lovers, how better to have made sure that Smirna's children actually belong to her husband?"
I set down my drink. I'm shaking with suppressed laughter, and almost spill the wine. "My dear," I say in Odin's best no-nonsense voice, "If our children require live-in lovers to remain in the same household without killing each other, perhaps marriage is not the best option."
Daina's bloodless lips curve into a perplexed frown. "Oh, but what would you suggest? Smirna has her lover, who must be a eunuch so that she is not bearing children with him, and your son has his lover, who must be a neuter as well for to ensure that no accidents occur and all children are of your line and mine."
This . . . negotiation is getting away from me. "You and I are very good friends, aren't we?" I say. "I hoped to join our realms in peace for all time. Do you really think our children hate each other that much?"
The Elven Queen's perfect brow pinches into a sharp v. She blinks her yellow eyes as if I have just sprouted antlers. "But—Odin-King? Hate each other? Not at all. I thought . . . But I thought—but you said that Loki did not enjoy intercourse with women?"
/
"This is not how I envisioned our talk going," I confess to Prince Frey of Vanaheim. His people are already on their feet, cheering.
/
"You didn't?" Nibelung III demands. "Why?"
"Why?" I repeat, feigning outrage. "Because I will not sit down to treat over a spread that does not include fried liben seeds."
The Dwarven feast hall is already alight with one hundred kinds of cooked meat, one hundred and fifty stews, and enough bread to build a castle. Tables carved from emeralds glitter before chairs hewn from other precious stones: rubies, sapphires; set with gold and onyx inlays.
"I," I say, "am leaving. This is beyond compare! You insult me by failing to set out this simple dish. We will treat at Asgard or not at all. You should bring your entire court this time, that every Dwarven elder, adult, and child may know how poorly your people compare to the splendor of my realm."
/
The Elven Queen cackles. "Do not tell me you Aesir have become shy about mating? The look on your face could—a-hah—turn an army from its march."
"Not your army, I trust?" I have to steer us back toward war-talks. It's the only way my brain will de-explode.
"I think Loki would have been happy in this marriage," Dania says, ignoring me. "I think he would have found it suited him. He was a very logical man, your late son. So long as he did not share your squeamishness about eunuchs, and so long as he wasn't opposed to the entire idea."
I am opposed to this entire conversation.
Queen Daina says, "Is this why you never consummated the idea? You are terrified of the eunuchs, Odin-King? Tell me, please: although this plan will now never come to be, what would you have thought is an acceptable solution? Are our children wed only to be forced to seek pleasure in secret outside of their marriage? Risk your law and their reputations? What is the word you have for this? Adult-ery? Rather than an honest Alfr counter-marriage? Is this the life you will choose for your son? I would not choose this for my daughter."
"You are tying to unsettle me," I say.
Daina squeezes my hands in delighted confession.
Odin would surge to his feet and threaten her for daring to think she could prattle on about his late son so coarsely. He would insult her un-Asgardian morals, demand to know whether she meant to change her mind about the binding treaty Alfheim snubbed over a thousand years ago—and that would be the end of my attempt at alliance.
I say, "My dear, I am not unsettled about eunuchs or Elven counter-marriages. I am unsettled and—I dare say—disappointed . . . that you would rather talk about what is past than the future we have together. Your daughter, Smirna, is still unwed."
"Yes?"
I suppress an evil grin. "I have another son."
Daina cuddles next to me, entwining her left arm in my right. "A royal wedding? You are so filled with surprises today."
"Many more than you might think." I raise my wine glass to her in salute.
"A royal wedding." She pats my elbow with her free hand. "The people of Asgard will love you for this. I can just hear all the happy voices now . . ."
/
The common people and two Councils are in an uproar. The Twelve Seats are twisted out of their chairs in debate, shouting over each other with reasons why I am wrong (although not in those words), why my information must be incorrect, why even if Thanos could someday escape his prison between realms he could never summon enough cowards to his side to fill out his ranks.
"Your Majesty," Chieftain Tyr interjects above the rabble. Gladsheim's deafening cacophony fades to a dull roar. "Even supposing this . . . horrible state of affairs is true—"
"You know me well, old friend," I growl. Frightened, hostile eyes stare down at me from all sides. "Do you think me a spoiled child or grief-mad over a murdering traitor, that I would come to this place with this tale if I were not absolutely certain?"
Quiet hangs a noose above my head. I wait for the last simmers to die away before tucking my hands behind my back—damnit, no, before dropping my arms habrium-stiff at my sides, fists clenched in a hard pose that says Odin is Angry.
I say—in Odin's voice—, "Thanos is returned. The Chitauri have discovered Vorsgard and it is only a matter of time before they use the Tesseract to break the curse restraining him. Your choice is not whether or not we should believe words sworn to your king by a madman. Your choice is, Shall we kneel to an enemy who has been plotting our defeat for millennia? Thanos sent his minions to Vorsgard during the Convergence knowing that we would have left behind enough technology to unlock his seal. What proof do I have to offer that all I say is true?"
I have no idea.
He will make you long for something sweet as pain.
/
"You are doomed today," the Dwarven King says, when he and his court walk through the double doors into Odin's Great Hall. Towering golden dishes piled high with every conceivable food fill the space in a grand display, set upon gold tables lined with red velvet. Jewel-encrusted goblets, flatware, centerpieces, and enchanted braziers wink from any crevice not overflowing with things to eat and drink. Despite the feast to end all feasts I have laid out for them, King Nibelung III turns up his nose and rocks side to side which is, among Dwarves, a sign for boredom.
Despite their king's forced apathy, Nibelung's court eyes the glittering stacks with pinched, colorless faces.
"I have delights here from every corner of Yggdrasil," I say, waving an arm to encompass my splendor. "Should you desire Jotnar beer or Eldjotnar cuskalas, Alfr spicemeats or—I dare say—Dvergr scorpion bread."
"A fine display," Nibelung admits, although from whimpering hiss at the back of his throat one would think he is being tortured. "But . . ."
"Name your want," I say. "But what? You would prefer music to accompany this grand meal?"
Relief breaks across his face in a fragile wave—and then ratchets into wary skepticism.
I clap my hands. Alfr songbirds flutter down from ivory perches in an ephemeral blaze of scarlet and silver. The songbirds are accompanied by an orchestral troupe, masked in the shadows behind the high table. Sweet, haunting music fills my hall.
"I despise songbirds," Nibelung declares, smiling broadly. "All of this . . . feast—" he stumbles over the disgusted inflection he's attempting— "is little more than gilded poison. Your throne is as hollow as you taste in music, you overgrown garbage-ringer. We will have our talks on Nithavellir, or not at all."
Another Dwarf, dressed in messenger's white, hurries up to catch his king's ear. He's stumbling, shaken from just stepping off the bifrost, but I already know the frantic secret whispered to Nibelung. I feign irritation while the Dwarf King turns the color of rancid fruit.
"Muh—muh—mm," Nibelung stammers. He spins round to gape wild-eyed at me, and then at his messenger.
"Yes?" I demand. "What is this, now?"
When he doesn't respond with anything coherent, I turn to bark orders at my court.
"Sigg!" I wave him over. "Don't stand there with your tongue dangling loose; tell the staff to throw this feast away. We have no use for it."
Odin's attendant scampers off. Lord Aumdyn stomps up from my left and leans so close that I can smell his muscular foreboding like an angry armory. "Allfather," he murmurs.
"What is it?"
"You . . ." He glances over his left shoulder. I follow his line of sight, and see a small crowd sweating nervously in the corridor just outside the hall. Aumdyn wets his lips. "Sire. The War Council has expressed concern that Asgard cannot cover your expenses. If Your Majesty continues spending on these . . . uneaten feasts . . . the cost will rise beyond what the War Council has allotted for personal rights. This setting alone is estimated at a glance to be well over—"
"The War Council has expressed concern?" I repeat, eyebrows raised. It's hard to keep the smirk from my voice. "Has the War Council asked the treasury what my little expenses are costing Asgard?"
"The treasurers made no mention of it," Aumdyn says. "I thought perhaps they wished to keep His Majesty's expenditures to His Majesty."
"Really? How blindly noble of them."
To our right, King Nibelung III is in heavy whisper-mode with his court. The rancid-fruit color leaps from face to face. The entire Dwarven party looks ready to ignite.
Sigg returns with twenty strong men and women, who get to work painfully throwing out our golden tables, our golden plates, our delicacies and delectables from Nine Realms. Lord Aumdyn's strong pretty face curls in on itself. His jaw clicks.
"Wait!" King Nibelung cries.
I hold up a hand.
The golden waste-procession stops.
The Dwaven King strides toward me, black cloak billowing like a wraith.
"Why, my ugly little nemesis," I drawl. King Nibelung doesn't look remotely into insult-wars, now. He ignores my efforts with a half-hearted sigh. "I was making preparations to move my court to your realm, yet again."
"There will be no need for that," Nibelung III says. His huge shoulders sag. "It seems the Fates have cast their bones for you, Odin-Asgard-King."
"Oh? How so?"
Nibelung III puffs out his cheeks twice. He tries to simultaneously look me in the eye and not look up at me, which . . . well. Just makes me sad, honestly.
He finally admits, "I received news off from Nithavellir. I, Lord King of Shadows, must confess thus: I came for your noble feast today with intent to refuse your mighty hospitality no matter what splendor you laid before me—"
No, really?
"—for in secret I had already made plans to lavish my own hall much more grandly than yours, that I might discredit you at last. However . . ." Rather than fruit, he now resembles a particularly embarrassed shadow. "This messenger tells me that raiders from the Fringe attacked my gold-hoard meant to pay for doing this to you. We are . . ." badly in debt, I think. "We are . . . willing to talk now, if Odin-Asgard-King is willing. In Asgard."
"Well!" says Sigg, who apparently feels some finger-wagging is in order. "Perhaps you deserved that for being dishonest. His Majesty is very busy and his time is very important."
"We'll set out a smaller meal," I say, "since I will not go back on my word once given. I declared this feast unfit, so out it goes in the trash."
Lord Aumdyn visibly bites his tongue.
"Sigg?" I say, smiling inside. "Tell the staff to throw everything out but—oh, that bowl of bread, there, beside the stuffed swan. And bring out one of the old wooden tables that our new very-good-friends feared might be unstable. If the Fates truly are in my favor, they will show their support with structural integrity."
As the Dvergr court shuffles to one side, Aumdyn approaches me again. He is not smiling, but his dark brown eyes have a distant gleam to them.
"Lord Aumdyn?" I say.
Aumdyn clasps his hands behind his back. He draws in a short, sharp breath. "The Fringe," he says. "How interesting that their pirates came from the Fringe."
"Oh? Why?"
"No reason at all, I do not think, but . . ." The left half of his mouth tips upward. " . . . I wonder how pirates from the Fringe knew a Dwarven king would have a gold-hoard en route through open space somewhere."
"A lucky shot?" I say. "Not so lucky for Nibelung."
Aumdyn nods. "I only thought it funny because your late s—" he coughs. "—The vile traitor," he corrects, without embarrassment, "whose name I will not speak, had many contacts in the Fringe. He used to lead Black Tower raids against derelict witch-harbors, there, as I am sure Sire remembers. Now . . . The Traitor's allies are on the rise and pirates from his past haunting ground have sent our allies right to our table. Some men might take this for an omen."
A chill worms up my spine. "And you, Lord Aumdyn? Do you take this for an omen?"
He gives me a tight-lipped smile. "One does not get so far as I in the Red Tower without recognizing that omens mean lives. I am the son of a farmer, who won a seat in the Council through dedication and loyalty. And intelligence. Observation. Assets, Sire. All assets. All unusual but necessary assets. Assets win wars. Assets include omens. Yes, I take this for an omen."
"And what sort of omen do you make this out to be, Lord War Leader?" I force an easy smile.
"Retribution."
His eyes burn bright.
I say, "Whose? The Fringe?"
Aumdyn shakes his head. The gold woven through his hair sparkles like a half-hundred torches. "Ours. The Traitor's allies mean to tear apart the Nine Realms but we are made strong instead, by chance. Do you see, Sire? We will see him defeated even beyond his death. Asgard will have her retribution."
On this happy note my sparkly friend wanders back to the Dwarven party, who are gathered around their simple feast in abashed hunger.
We sit down to eat plain black bread from a plain clay bowl, on plain wooden benches round a plain oak table. Once the feasting is done, we get down to talks. Once the talks are done, I judge it safe to release one of my many enchantments. The dismissed songbirds and orchestral troupe vanish; elsewhere, down the furnace chute, I suspect there is a vibrant green aurora. Every piece of my beautiful golden feast—every item that wasn't this bread bowl and accompanying wood table—turns back into stone bricks wrapped in gutter cloth.
/
Gladsheim watches me intently.
My palms are clammy.
He will make you long for something sweet as pain.
"What proof," I repeat, "do I have to offer that in telling me of Thanos Loki spoke true?"
Tyr's calculating stare burns down at me from on high.
Frigga's eyebrows knit together in deplorable misery.
The two Councils, the Twelve Seats, and all the gathered peasantry are silent.
Now is the moment. If I have any last tricks up my sleeve, I need them. This is the lynchpin for the entire damn war.
Pausing around what I hope looks like an imperious survey of my kingdom, I cast about for anything that might convince them. Anything at all. How can Odin have a personal report with Thanos? He doesn't. He can't. Not if I want to keep his image. I need his image.
I need a . . . a . . .
Scapegoat.
A light switches on in my soul.
A sulfurous rush floods my veins. I glare up into the waiting masses, hating them all so much that I cannot speak. I know what to say to convince them. I know how to rig the game. I know how to win.
Never failed. It's never failed.
If I win, I will be wiped from every history book.
Never, never failed.
I will be cursed.
I will be erased, rather than merely forgotten as Odin-King's disappointing second son.
On the other hand, I can have fun exploring the limits of personal endurance with Thanos.
My skin grows cold.
He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.
"What proof have I to this?" I say. My tongue is a dead weight.
He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.
I am leering behind my mask. I have to leer. I can't not leer. If I don't leer, I'm going to—I'm going to—
I say, in Odin's ages-hard, indomitable voice: "Who do you think told the Chitauri where to find our homeworld? Vorsgard's location is a secret known only to Heimdall and a few of our magicians: sorceresses and sorcerers whom I am sure are beyond question . . . and the royal family."
And it's over.
Another moment sinks in what I've said. Frenzied bloodlust soars from the Seats and Councilors thick and black as flies. Rage pours from Gladsheim in an unquenchable tide.
Loki! Loki told them. Loki gave them Vorsgard!
Monster!
Tyr's eyes have gone wide in astonishment.
Chieftain Forseti is on his feet, pleading for peace in the face of a hurricane.
I cannot look at Mother.
When the screaming courts and peasantry reaches a climax, I hold up my fist. "Who will stand with me against this evil?"
I! roars the crowd.
"Who will?"
I! I! I!
"Our ancestors rose up against Thanos when he foolishly thought to make Asgard his thrall. Will we tell our ancestors that we were too frightened to do the same?"
No!
"Will we shame our fathers?"
No!
"Will we be like Loki, and betray the Nine Realms?"
No!
"Will Asgard fight? Will we cower in fear, or will we lead the other realms to war?"
War!
War!
War!
War!