Trials

Chapter Thirteen: Loki's Turn

Thor had no more bursts of legal brilliance, but after they talked it over a while longer Loki refined and further added to his arguments, and practiced his questions on Thor twice. The first time, Thor tried to pretend he was Sorkvir. The second time, well, Thor wasn't particularly patient and he bored easily. He pretended he was Loki, or Baldur, or Father, or an Einherjar, and once he pretended he was Loki's horse, Lifhilda. Loki started out angry that his brother wasn't taking this seriously but before long was collapsing in a heap on the floor with laughter while Thor neighed and stomped at the floor. It was just like old times – indeed twelve instead of twenty – and Loki's face hurt from all the smiling. Then he shooed Thor away, sobered up, and ran through his arguments and questions again until the two-hour break was over.

"Lord Magistrate," Loki began when it was at last his turn to ask the questions. "I also have a statement…or rather a request to make, before I begin…if I may?"

"You may make your request."

He stepped back into the response box he'd spent so much time in this morning. "Sorkvir raised a topic today, a question, really, that I did not have an opportunity to answer. I would like to take that opportunity now."

"What is the question?" Finnulfur asked with a look of recognition and a nod, making Loki wonder if he actually already knew. Finnulfur, of course, was no mere law clerk. He probably did know.

"Why did I tell no one that I intended to use magic in my battle trial."

The First Magistrate nodded again. "Yes. You may answer this question. In fact, I would like to hear the answer."

"Thank you, Lord Magistrate. I told no one about my use of magic for the same reason I told no one of my use of rope. These elements were meant to be surprises. I…I didn't actually expect so many people to come to my Trials. I wanted it to be a surprise for my family. The Trials take up most of the day, and my father is the king-" Loki stopped, eyes briefly going wide, before recovering. Luckily Finnulfur did not seem bothered. "My father is very busy. Both of my parents. I wanted them all to enjoy it, to entertain them. I…I wanted to impress them," he said somewhat bashfully. "My brother even helped me build the ramps and stairs and walls and I still didn't tell him what I was actually doing with any of it. And I had to tell him what I planned with the log for the strength trial, because I needed his participation to do it." Loki stepped backward into the boundaries of the larger box.

"May I ask a following question?" Sorkvir asked.

Loki frowned as Finnulfur hesitated. No, he thought, it's my turn now.

"If it is directly relevant, you may. Otherwise, I ask you to save your point for your final statement."

Sorkvir affirmed that it was directly relevant, and Loki stepped forward again. "Did you not ask permission for your strength demonstration involving the log?"

"I did," Loki said, not following why it mattered.

"Why?"

Two following questions. Finnulfur made no move to intervene. "Because no one is allowed to help you during your Trials. No one can carry you or let you lean on them during the endurance trial, no one can help you carry other things, or wield your sword for you…you have to prove that you can do it yourself. And I wanted Thor to help me, but…only in the sense of making the demonstration entertaining, not in lessening the amount I was lifting. Increasing it, actually. He's quite heavy," Loki added, thinking about how much food Thor had stuffed away at lunch.

"In other words, you understood that what you planned might be seen as violating the rules, so to ensure that you were in fact not violating the rules, you asked permission. Correct?"

"Yes," Loki said with a frown. So we're back to that? Permission? He was ready for that now. "Yes, that's right. Because of the only two rules you did explain to me, Sorkvir, one was that I could not have help. Because I had been informed of that rule, and I knew that there was a risk of that demonstration being disallowed, even an incredibly small one, I asked permission." Loki stood in place, head held high, and waited; just as he expected – or hoped, at least – Sorkvir had nothing to say to that. One hit for Loki! he called out in his thoughts, unable to entirely keep the look of victory from his face.

"Very well, please begin your questions, Loki."

Loki stepped back again, this time turning as he did so to see Thor, to share his moment of triumph, but Thor was looking away, distracted. Worried? Troubled? Loki narrowed his eyes. It had felt like a moment of triumph, but now he wondered if he'd missed something and that hadn't gone as well as he'd thought. He tried to set it aside; he had to press forward now. His notecards were in his pocket, but he'd leave them there unless he thought he'd forgotten something.

"Sorkvir, it was you who explained the rules of the Trials to me, wasn't it?" he asked, diving nervously into his first series of questions. He remembered after he asked it that they'd just established that, but he figured it wouldn't hurt anything to make it more explicit.

"And what did you tell me about them?" he asked after Sorkvir's assent.

"We talked about the Trials several times. I don't remember exactly what I said on these multiple occasions. I did explain that you could not have assistance, as you noted, and that if you wanted to use a weapon other than a sword you would have to seek approval first."

"Did you ever explain to me what each of the four parts of the Trials entailed?"

"Every child knows that," Sorkvir said with a dismissive frown.

"But did you explain it to me?"

"No."

"Did you, or any other trainer, show me the route of the endurance trial?"

"I can't speak for others, but I didn't."

"Wouldn't it normally be you who would show the route?"

"Yes, but I knew you'd already run the route with your brother when he was readying for his Trials. There was no need."

Loki tried to hold back his grin, but he was pretty sure he was failing spectacularly. "You assumed I knew the route, so therefore you didn't show it to me, is that right?"

Sorkvir took a moment to think before answering, and Loki wanted to cackle in delight, because he recognized the look on his face. Asking the questions was way more fun than having to answer them. "I believe I also directly asked you, 'Loki, do you know the route,' and you told me you did. So yes, I assumed that you did, but I also confirmed that."

"But you could have been wrong," Loki said, some of the wind disappearing from his sails.

"But I wasn't. And if I had been wrong, I assume you would have corrected me."

"But…were there not other things that you didn't explain to me that…that you just assumed I knew because I had helped Thor prepare for his Trials just ten months ago? Isn't it true that you thought I already knew all about the Trials because of my brother?"

"If you're talking about technical details such as how long the strength demonstrations should last, how long you have to stand against Tyr, and the order of the series variations in the skills trial, you're correct, I never explained that to you for your Trials. But that's not just because Prince Thor had his Trials ten months ago, that's because you were with Prince Thor when I explained all this to him."

"But those were his Trials, not mine," Loki continued on, though his voice now sounded desperate to his own ears. He'd thought this would be a really good tactic when Thor suggested it, but now it seemed it wasn't working at all. Sorkvir was convincing even him that he hadn't missed out on anything because of Thor. It wasn't as though Thor had been sat down separately and given a set of rules, including one precluding magic, that were then never told to Loki. And had that happened, Thor would have told him about it. No, he'd started his questions with a mistake. He was trying to be clever, and cases before a magistrate weren't about being clever. They were about a clear argument, a right and a wrong – they were about being right. Thor had called his conviction that he was right a problem. Thor, he now thought, was wrong.

"I'm sorry, Lord Magistrate, I don't believe that was a question."

"It was not. Loki, do you have any further questions for Sorkvir about the preparations for your Trials and your older brother's?"

Loki scrambled for some way to salvage this; there was a point to be made here. Maybe it hadn't had any actual impact, but Thor had definitely received more attention in the lead-up to his Trials than Loki had. Thor always received more attention. Because he was older, because he demanded more of it, and just because he was Thor. "Perhaps I can ask it more clearly and simply," Loki prefaced, thinking of how nearly everything Thor did received more attention. "Did you spend as much time explaining my Trials to me as you did Thor's to him?"

He watched as Sorkvir's jaw worked, as he clearly contemplated his answer. It made Loki angry. He'd asked the question well, he thought. It required a simple factual answer. Anything else would be obfuscation and run afoul of the oaths. Sorkvir, thankfully, came to the same conclusion, answering just as Finnulfur began to speak to intervene. "No, I did not," he said. Loki expected Sorkvir to look angry now, but he didn't. He seemed calm, and unperturbed that Loki had finally, finally, been able to make his point. Even if in the end it wasn't as great of a point as he thought at first. Maybe that's why Sorkvir's not upset about it, he thought.

"All right," Loki said, leaving it there. No good would come of pressing it any further. "Are you able to use magic?"

"Me?" Sorkvir asked, surprise evident on his face. Tyr, whom Loki continued to glance to from time to time, as usual didn't react. "I, ah…no. No more than anyone else."

"So, you aren't able to make a light out of nothing but your own energy and the surrounding energy?"

"Only out of a candle or a lamp. A torch. A fire from kindling. The normal ways."

Loki tried not to bristle at the word "normal." There was nothing abnormal about magic; Asgard hummed with it. But his kind of magic, the magic he strove to use, wasn't particularly common, and to Sorkvir it might seem abnormal. "Given that it takes incredible discipline, incredible strength of mind to create light yourself – it took me almost a whole year to learn to do it reliably – and that I had to do it while simultaneously fighting Tyr, why is there any less honor in using magic?"

"I believe that is more of a philosophical question than a factual one, Loki," Finnulfur said.

"Well…if you did know how to use magic, would you ever use it in battle?"

"I…I don't think so. I don't know. It's too hypothetical."

"If you had lost your weapon and had no physical advantage, and magic was the only way to save your life, you still aren't sure if you would use it? Shouldn't you use every skill you have, to defend your life, or your fellow Asgardians' lives?"

"Under those circumstances, in battle, I think I would already be dead. If I weren't, perhaps I would resort to some form of magic if I had no other means. But the question is irrelevant. We aren't discussing real battle. We're discussing the Trials."

"But shouldn't I display all my skills, all my abilities, in the battle trial? It's meant to simulate real battle, isn't it?"

"You should display all your skills and abilities that are relevant and permitted. And the battle trial does simulate real battle, but…within strict limits. If it were true battle, if you had truly been fighting Tyr, you would be dead."

Loki paused to take a couple of deep breaths, to steady himself. Everything that had seemed so clear and logical in his own mind, and when running through it with Thor, now seemed muddled, and Loki felt he was grasping at straws and Sorkvir was yanking every single one of them away. He should have known better than to base anything on Thor pretending to be Sorkvir. Thor had had to retake the law portion of the Advanced Examinations. "Except for in that one moment, right?" Loki asked, again trying to draw something useful from this point that he wasn't even certain about anymore. "I would have killed Tyr if I had created that light and blinded him in a real battle."

"It's impossible to say."

Loki turned to Finnulfur with an exasperated look.

"You're asking about a counterfactual, Loki. It can't be answered with certainty. But Sorkvir, can you at least provide an opinion?"

Sorkvir seemed to be thinking it over, but Loki thought he looked more frustrated and annoyed than anything. "I cannot, I'm sorry. In the battle trial, in that moment, were Loki wielding a fully-sharpened sword and had he actually gone for the kill, yes, quite likely. In actual battle, Tyr would have been fighting differently. There's no way to judge."

"But you're saying it's possible."

"Anything is possible."

Loki nodded, and decided to move on, since he'd completely lost track of what he was trying to ask anyway. "Sorkvir…you suggested earlier that I should have known magic was disallowed because neither you nor any of the other trainers taught me how to use it. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Sorkvir said immediately, with a crisp nod.

"Was I absent the day you taught us how to use two swords at once?"

Sorkvir's silence was telling. "What?" he asked after a few confused blinks.

Loki stole a quick glance at Tyr, whose eyes had narrowed a bit, but he had no idea what that meant. "I was just wondering if I missed that lesson, since Thor used two swords in his battle trial, but I don't remember ever being taught that."

"You were not taught that," Sorkvir said; Loki was disappointed that he still looked confident as he spoke. "But Thor asked permission to use two swords."

"So…when you say I should have known magic was against the rules, is it because I wasn't taught it by a trainer, or because I didn't ask permission? Thor used a skill in his battle trial that wasn't taught by a trainer, but you had no issue with that. Isn't it true, then, that it's irrelevant whether a skill was taught by a trainer?"

"It is not irrelevant. It is…the fact that magic was not taught should have been a signal to you that you could not simply assume that it was acceptable. The fact that using two swords at once had not yet been taught was a sufficient signal to your brother that he needed to ask permission to incorporate it."

Loki swallowed, taking a moment to think, then remembered his notecards and pulled them nervously from his pocket. He'd started off strong, he thought with a good point or two, but it felt like everything was unraveling now. "But you had no problem with two swords?" he asked as the words on the cards blurred before his eyes.

"No. A sword is the standard weapon, and Thor merely wished to use two instead of one."

"I had a concern," Tyr put in, startling Loki. "I hadn't seen him fight with two swords before, not seriously, and I was afraid he might hurt himself. So I insisted on a simple test, a bout of light, controlled sparring, and while he obviously had a lot of work to do to be ready to wield two swords for his battle trial, I was satisfied that he would be able to do so safely."

Loki looked up at Tyr's inscrutable face and had no idea how to respond to what he'd just said. "The rope," he read on the card. "Did you have any issue with me using rope?"

"No," Sorkvir answered.

"Even though I didn't ask permission?"

"No. Objects are allowed, as long as they are in plain sight. And we do give the youths a few exercises in using rope, as part of their basic training."

"But the rope wasn't in plain sight, was it?"

Sorkvir glanced at Tyr before answering; Loki was relieved that he'd finally scored another hit, minor though it may be. "It was not exactly in plain sight, no, but it would have been plainly visible to anyone who went under the arbiter's platform."

Loki pressed the point further, asking about the walls and ramps and other props he'd used and confirming of each of them that while he hadn't asked permission or otherwise announced them in advance their use was not an issue, but he found that he could not get Sorkvir to give an answer that quite made the point that yet again had seemed so clear to him earlier.

"Strength of body and mind," he read. Yes! That's what I was trying to say earlier, before I got sidetracked. "A warrior should demonstrate strength of both body and mind, correct?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I practiced for a whole year to be able to make that light reliably. It took a great deal of concentration. Because of what Tyr told me about using axes, I knew that all of my fighting would need to be at close quarters, so I had to create the light while fighting Tyr at arm's length. I wanted to prove my strength of body and mind. Is that not also a critical skill on the battlefield?"

"Strength of mind as well as body? Yes, of course. But strength of mind is proven by ones' bearing during the battle trial. By not becoming overly flustered. By not losing track of the battle, of your opponent. By not panicking. Not by using magic, no matter how long it took you to learn it."

"Says who?"

"Pardon me?"

Loki blinked, took a breath, tried again, remembering the context. "Where is the rule that says strength of mind is not demonstrated by using magic in the midst of close quarters combat? Where is the rule that says magic is forbidden?"

Sorkvir looked to Finnulfur, who nodded that Sorkvir should answer. Sorkvir, Loki realized, probably thought he'd already answered this question, but although this entire trial centered on this one question, really, it had not yet actually been directly asked. It should have been his very first question.

"There is no written rule that says magic is forbidden."

Loki's face broke into an uncontrollable grin. "So you-"

"Please, allow me to continue. My answer was not complete."

"Go ahead," Finnulfur said.

"There are no written rules about many things in the Trials. You may not use poison on your weapon. You may not throw chemicals in the eyes of your trial opponent. You may not use fire in any way. These are just the first things that come to mind. You were never explicitly told any of these. And if we were required to list them out…how would we ever think of them all? It is self-evident that they are not allowed. Just as it is self-evident that magic is not allowed."

Loki swallowed, remembering how Finnulfur himself had made similar comments before the trial had even begun. Finnulfur, then, would find it a strong argument, and Loki had to think of a way to distinguish poison and chemicals and fire from what he'd done. With a small sigh of relief the difference came to him. "But those are all things that would actually injure the opponent. I created a light. A light. How can you compare that to…to poison?"

"I compare it only in the sense that no reasonable person would expect either to be permitted in the battle trial."

/

/

Things did not improve from there. Loki won no major arguments, but did not particularly lose any, either. On the whole, he thought his earlier momentum had been lost and Sorkvir had come out ahead. He thought he'd gotten in over his head. He thought he was going to lose. Finnulfur had called the trial to a close for the day when Loki had run out of questions; final statements would be heard tomorrow morning. The Aesir lived for 5,000 years and did not naturally operate on the schedule of eager impatient youths.

He sat sprawled on a chair at the back of the emptied chamber next to Thor, glass of water forgotten on the floor on his other side. "I can't believe this. I just can't believe this."

Thor sighed.

"It's not like I'm the first person in the history of Asgard to have a talent for magic. How can I be the first person in the history of Asgard to use magic at his Trials?"

Thor said nothing.

"And the first person in the history of Asgard to fail his Trials. Will you be too ashamed to come to my funeral?"

"Are you planning on dying?"

"You will be. No one will even show up to my funeral. They won't even bother with the boat."

"You're talking nonsense."

"So?"

Thor again said nothing.

Loki turned to face him. "How can they be so nonchalant about the rules? 'We don't bother with writing them down, because that would be hard,'" he mocked. "'You're just supposed to know them anyway, any reasonable person, anyone with decent judgement would just know them without being told.'"

"They really should be written down," Thor agreed after a moment. "Everything is written down somewhere. We have whole libraries of rules that are written down. The Advanced Law Examination was awful. It wouldn't have been nearly so awful if the clerks weren't writing down every tiny rule and amendment and exception for posterity."

Loki nodded. The Advanced Law Examination had been tough, but then, that's why it was called the advanced level. The law library's physical holdings were massive, and its non-physical holdings even more so. Loki slowly straightened up in his seat. "They do record every tiny rule, don't they? For posterity."

"What?" Thor asked as Loki's face slowly broke into a grin. "Oh! You think-"

"Maybe. It's worth a look."

"But Loki-"

"Come on! Race you to the library!"

/

I'm thinking it would be cool if I could finish this by the end of the year, huh? I'm so close the urge is strong. Would be nice to be down to two officially in-progress stories! Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Poor Loki. But I think he didn't do as badly as he's thinking at the moment.