Trials

Chapter Fourteen: Loki & Thor Go to the Library

"I hate it here," Thor whispered when they stepped off the stairs and onto the eighth floor Library of the Law.

"Say it a little louder, Brother. I'm sure the clerks at the desk would be thrilled to have their future king express his hatred for their library," Loki whispered back more quietly.

"You know why."

Loki nodded; Thor had spent a couple of months here meeting with a tutor to prepare to retake the Advanced Law Examination. "Better to say so outside, though."

"I did say so outside. More than once."

"I know. But we're inside now, so will you please be quiet?"

Thor grumbled but they were almost to the desk and he quickly fell silent.

"Hello again, my lord," one of the clerks at the desk said, the same blond young woman who'd assisted him yesterday.

"Ah, hello," Loki said, suddenly nervous. He'd been too busy listening to Thor complaining during the walk over and the climb up the stairs to think about the fresh wave of humiliation waiting for him here. "I…"

"I have something new to show you, if you'll just come with me for a moment?" she said with a bright smile.

"Ah, well, I don't-"

"It will only take a minute," she said, smile still in place, which actually looked a little odd.

"A-all right," Loki said, flustered. He looked to Thor, who stood there looking ill at ease for his own reasons, then followed the woman over to an alcove with a few chairs and displays of current law journals. "I'm actually looking for something else now."

"I suspected you might be. Something about the Trials?" she asked softly.

Loki's eyebrows went up. "Yes, actually."

"I did a little looking around. This is all we have on it here," she said, holding out a yellow notebook that Loki took. "Rights and responsibilities of warriors, the role of the Trials in being officially declared a warrior, that sort of thing."

"Oh," Loki said, disappointed. Finnulfur had already told him about these documents. What he was looking for wouldn't be in them. "But what about the-"

"The records of the Trials themselves? All the associated documentation?"

"Well…yes," Loki answered, surprised.

"They aren't here. I did a little poking around," she said, smile returning, though a little bashful this time, Loki thought. "You'll have to go the Library of War. To their archives, in the basement. They keep everything there."

Loki nodded. He'd been thinking about this in terms of law, but it made sense that records of the Trials would fall under war instead of law. It could have even fallen under education, or some other subject, but now he knew exactly where to go. "Thank you. How did you know what I was looking for?"

"I was there," she said with a little shrug. "At your Trials. And then you came in here asking about citizens' rights petitions and…I put two and two together."

Loki looked away in embarrassment as soon as she mentioned his Trials.

"They shouldn't have failed you. You were amazing. I don't see what's so wrong about using magic."

It took a minute to process, but Loki started to smile. "Thank you. Ah, what's your name?"

"Marthol," she said, holding out her hand.

Loki stared at it for a moment before taking it quickly, then forcing himself to slow down as he brought her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles with every bit of poise he could muster. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lady Marthol."

She smiled cutely as he released her hand. "And you, my lord. But you'd better hurry, the Libraries are closing in less than an hour. Though I'm sure they'd open for you regardless."

"Perhaps so," Loki said with a nod that he hoped was smoother than it felt. He thanked her, bade her farewell, and hurried back over to Thor, who was twirling Mjolnir at his side, drawing concerned looks from the law clerk still at the desk, and watching Loki with a grin. He wrapped a hand around Thor's arm and urged him back toward the stairs. "Let's go."

"Did you find a new research partner?"

"No."

"What's her name?"

Loki told him.

"What's her father's name?"

"She didn't say. What difference does it make?"

"How are you supposed to find her if you don't know her father's name?"

"Why do I need to find her?"

"Loki, are you serious?" Thor asked as they trotted down the stairs. "She's really pretty. And interested."

Loki glanced Thor's way, trying to assess whether his brother was merely jesting. He didn't seem to be. "It was nothing. She got some things for me yesterday when I was here. She was just helping me. And she's a lot older than me."

"Not that much, she can't be. You've almost crossed the line, you know. Once you're twenty it doesn't matter."

Loki looked over his shoulder this time, though Marthol was hardly in sight anymore in the broad marble stairwell. Thor was right, of course; he'd even been thinking the same thing himself just a few days ago, when he'd caught the attentions of a number of young ladies along the route of his run. But that was when he was assuming he was about to be declared a warrior; now it would require a change in mindset that Loki wasn't ready for yet. First things first. No girl was going to be interested in an Aesir who'd managed to buck thousands of years of tradition and fail his Trials. Still… "She was pretty, wasn't she?"

Thor laughed and gave Loki a light shove to the shoulder. "At least you know you can find her here. So what did she give you? Wait! Did she write her address on it? Let me see," he said, grabbing for the notebook.

Loki jerked it away from him and Thor started trying to manhandle it from him and Loki twisted away from him and dashed the rest of the way down, bursting through the doors and into the low light of dusk. Thor appeared behind him and snatched the notebook out of his hand. "Give it back, Thor."

Thor dodged his attempts to grab it from him, but only for about thirty seconds before he stopped trying and Loki got his hands on it again. "No address. Nothing but boring legal papers. 'Eighth Codex on the-' Where are we going?" he asked when Loki started off again but kept going straight rather than turning back home.

"To the Library of War. Marthol said that's where records related to the Trials are kept."

"Oh."

They continued on in silence for a while. Even at the fast pace they were keeping, it was a thirty-minute walk to the other library, and Loki was thinking they should have sent for horses.

"Marthol said she thought I should have passed. She said she didn't see anything wrong with using magic."

"It's different for her. She's not a warrior. The Women's Trials aren't as rigorous."

Loki frowned but said nothing. He didn't know what the Women's Trials had to do with anything, and he had a feeling that if he asked, he and Thor would end up fighting again.

"I'm sorry, we're about to close," an older man called just as Loki and Thor entered the Library of War. "Oh! Prince Thor, Prince Loki…what can I do for you?"

"We need to look through the basement archives. Records related to the Trials," Loki explained, holding his head high despite the embarrassment through sheer determination.

"I see. Well…that might take a while. Some of that collection has been archived into the retrieval system, but a great deal of it hasn't. Do you know how far back you want to look?"

"All the way back. All of it," Loki said.

"I'll put what I can onto a notebook, then, and you can start there. If you don't find what you're looking for you can come back to start going through the original materials ," the man said, heading back over to the desk he'd left to stop them when they'd first arrived.

"Actually, we need to look at the original materials today, too. Tonight," Loki clarified, projecting as much authority as he could muster. It was still new to him, really, as it was rarely needed, but he was slowly growing more at ease with speaking in orders on the rare occasions when it was.

"All right," the man said, hesitating a moment. "I suppose you can stay if you like, seeing as you're the king's sons. I'll assist you."

"That's not necessary. We can do it ourselves."

"Well," the man said, pausing to lick his lips nervously, "those materials are quite old. They're well-preserved, most of them, but…"

"We'll take good care of the books," Thor said. "We're here for serious work, not games," he added in a voice stern and sober enough to convince anyone who didn't actually know him.

"Yes, of course," he said with a laugh that still betrayed nervousness. "I'll get right to work on the notepad, and you can go ahead and get started on the rest. Trials records are held on the fifth level of the basement."

"Which section?" Loki asked.

"Section? Ah, no, you misunderstand. Trials records take up the entire fifth level of the basement."

/

/

It was chilly in the basement archives, but not the dripping damp chill of some other basements on Asgard. Here the temperature and humidity were carefully controlled to protect the ancient texts, Loki assumed. The ancient texts that covered shelf after shelf after shelf, half again as tall as Thor and so far back that Loki could barely make out the far wall at the end of the central corridor they stood in.

Beside him, Thor was looking around slowly, and he didn't look happy. In fact, he looked like he'd eaten something that had rotted.

"I know it's a lot…," Loki said, trailing off. Even his voice sounded tiny and insignificant in this massive chamber.

"A lot," Thor echoed a moment later. "Uh-huh." Another minute passed. "Loki…you know this is pointless…right? It would take…years, decades even, to read all of this. And you don't even know if what you're looking for actually exists. And if it does exist, and by some…completely inexplicable coincidence you somehow manage to find it…what if it doesn't say what you think it'll say? I mean…what if Tyr and Sorkvir are right?"

Loki didn't answer immediately. He couldn't. His jaw started to tremble. He turned around to face Thor instead of the cavernous basement. "Why don't you just say what you mean."

Thor looked at him in apparent confusion. "I think I just did."

"You think Tyr and Sorkvir are right. You think magic is the same as…as poison, or caustic chemicals."

"Father and Mother both use magic, Loki, of course I don't think it's the same as poison. But no, I don't think it should be used at the Trials. The Trials don't test magic."

"If you'd been able to use magic, you would have."

"I would not," Thor responded sharply.

"Yes, you would have. Because you wanted to win. You're just jealous because I did win."

"Jealous? Jealous? You failed, Loki. You think I'm jealous? You broke the rules and now you're paying the price and that's not my fault!"

"What rules?! You don't get to go around making up rules after the fact, or enforcing rules you never explained. They don't throw people in prison and write down a law that they broke after the fact. That's not fair. It's not right. And you keep saying you're going to help me but you've never really been on my side in this. And I'm tired of it. If you're not on my side then you shouldn't even be here. I'll do it myself." Loki paused to huff out an angry breath. "I know I have to convince Finnulfur. But you're my brother, Thor. And my best friend. I shouldn't have to convince you."

Loki stood there glaring at Thor, nose flaring with his rapid breathing, and Thor's gaze flickered and fell. He worked his left hand up behind his neck and rubbed. "I'm sorry, Loki. You're right. You shouldn't have to. You don't have to. They should have told you the rules. All of them." He closed the distance between them and the hand that had been on his neck came to rest on Loki's. "Brothers first. All else and all others second. I am on your side, and I will never leave it." He turned to the side, letting his arm fall around Loki's shoulders. He looked around him, nodding slowly, with that determined look in his eyes that he got right before a bout of sparring he knew would be particularly challenging. "Where do you want me to start?"

The intense emotions drained away as quickly as they'd risen up as Loki basked in Thor's pledge and the clear conviction behind it, trusting it in a way he hadn't fully with Thor's previous offers of support, and giddiness took its place. It wasn't like Loki had expected to be dealing with this many books, either. "Do you see that red one, on that shelf over there?" Loki asked, holding out his arm to point.

Thor made a show of leaning in and carefully matching his eyeline to Loki's outstretched finger. "Next to the two black ones?"

"That's the one. Why don't you start there?"

Thor chuckled. "All right. If you say so."

"Only in jest, of course. When the keeper returns, we'll ask him how things are organized here. The books won't be randomly tossed onto shelves. Then we'll have an idea where to start. And we won't need to read every book. You're right; that would be impossible. We'll just check them by section, until we find something that looks promising. And I thought of something else. There's no way Sorkvir could have literally looked at every single past record of the Trials, not if they're not even all in the automated retrieval system. Can you picture Sorkvir down here poring over all these books?"

"No. You mean you think he lied?"

"No. I'm sure he didn't lie. Perhaps he didn't even realize that there were actual books down here that long predate retrieval. Who knows what we might find?"

Thor was nodding, looking around again. "Right. Who knows?"

Loki smiled fondly at his brother. Thor hadn't really changed his opinions, and he was definitely still skeptical they'd find anything useful here – "skeptical" was probably putting it optimistically – but he seemed determined now to support him with no more wavering. He wished Thor truly agreed with him, but perhaps in a way it spoke more highly of his brother that he disagreed but had decided once and for all to set his own opinions aside for Loki's sake.

"Jolgeir!" Thor suddenly shouted, making Loki jump. "Are you here?"

"I am, my prince," the Einherjar said from behind them, stepping out from a shadow just inside the door of the basement.

"My brother and I have to go through every book in this library tonight," Thor said. "And I'm going to need sustenance. Lots of it. I will defend Loki from any rogue attacker for a few minutes while you get a message to a servant to bring us a cart."

"I'll get a message to Thidrek, and he can call for a servant. He's just out in the stairwell," Jolgeir said with visibly held-back laughter before turning to go.

Thor dropped his head in annoyance. "Two of them. Did you know Thidrek was following us, too?"

Loki shook his head; he hadn't been looking. "That's not Jolgeir's job, you know. Or Thidrek's."

"They don't exactly need to do their real one anymore, though. You just proved yourself in your Trials. You don't need anyone's protection," Thor said with a proud smile. "I'm not just saying that, Brother. I mean it."

Loki smiled back and started trying to figure out how they were going to get through as much material as possible by tomorrow morning.

/

/

"Loki, look at this!"

"What did you find?" Loki asked, leaving a book pulled out a bit to mark his place then walking around to Thor's side of the shelf they were currently going through, some two hours into their search.

"Look. It's Grandfather's Trials book."

"Bor's or Fjorginn's?"

"Bor's," Thor answered, holding out a book covered in auburn leather. It was thick and hefty, a real book rather than the slim booklets produced to commemorate most Trials. The cover merely noted Bor's name, his parents' names, and the dates of his birth, his Trials, and his twentieth birthday. Thor opened to the first page. It traced Bor's lineage – and hence their own – while facing it was a family portrait. "This must have been the day of his Proclaiming. Look at that helmet! He looks so small under it."

"How did he see anything with it on?"

Thor turned another page, to find two images of their grandfather at different points on his endurance run, and on the next page, one of the crowd cheering for him and one with him wearing an exuberant boyish grin. "He's so young. You never see him looking like this."

"I think you look a little like him."

"Really?" Thor asked, peering closer.

Loki went to the gap on the shelf and pulled out the book next to it. "Father's." He and Thor exchanged a smile over it. They'd both seen this one before; a copy of it was part of one of the two libraries in their parents' chambers. "I suppose when you become king yours will go next to his," Loki said. He'd already checked and it wasn't there now; he would recognize Thor's book easily, and a much thinner and more worn book currently stood next to the gap where Bor's and Odin's had been removed. His gaze drifted off.

"They'll make you one, Loki. Once this is all cleared up."

Loki gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I already chose the cover design."

"We need to keep moving," Thor said.

/

/

"Thor! Come look at this one!"

Thor hurried around to the other side of the bookshelf. "What is it?"

"Look. It's some kind of ledger, and it's tracking the weapons used in the battle trial."

Thor nodded, eyes skimming over the pages of the thin book. It held names and dates and a few other details, but the last column was for weapons. "Sword, sword, sword, sword, swords, sword…mace. And more swords."

Loki turned the page and they kept skimming. These records weren't as old as some of the others, covering a period of a few hundred years, not too long before their father's Trials. Loki skimmed eagerly, looking for someone's use of magic. It wasn't there.

/

/

"Thor? I'm going to get some-"

"Mm, yes, what?" Thor asked, the words rushing out over a cut-off yawn.

Loki had seen it, how Thor's mouth had been wide open and how he had quickly closed it. "It's all right to be tired, you know. It's almost six."

"I'm not tired," Thor answered, pulling out another old book and opening to the information page.

"I'm tired, but you stay out all night all the time."

"I don't stay out all night all the time."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't. Sometimes, not all the time."

"It doesn't matter. I just meant you don't have to pretend you aren't tired."

"All right. I'm tired. What were you saying, before?"

"What was I saying?" Loki asked himself. His brain was getting foggy. "Oh! I was going to get some tea, and I wanted to see if you wanted some, too."

Thor nodded and mumbled his agreement as he pulled a book from the next section. "Loki, wait," he said a second later, before Loki had taken more than a couple of steps. "Come here, look at the date on this."

Loki went to Thor's side and peered at the book, whose pages had a slight brown tint to them. His eyebrows went up. "This is probably from before Great-grandfather had his Trials. What is it? Chief Trainer's Impress of the Trials of Young Aesir? Oh, 'impress' meaning…'printing,' something like that, not the verb. I wonder when we stopped having a Chief Trainer."

"I don't know," Thor said absently, flipping the book open randomly to the middle. "The language is a little strange. Loki, these are really old records. And I don't think it's in retrieval, it doesn't say so on the first page. I bet you a barrel of mead Sorkvir didn't go through these. Maybe there's something useful in them."

Loki nodded. "We have less than four hours. This ledger covers all of the Trials for ten years." He pulled out the book that came after the one Thor held, opened it up, checked the information page. "This one, too. It's the next ten years."

"Ten years per ledger, and it doesn't have all those friends and family parts…we could cover a lot of time," Thor said. "You go forward and I'll go backward?"

"Let's start at the very beginning first. Maybe there's a very first Chief Trainer's Impress. Where he wrote about rules."

"And the very end!" Thor exclaimed, really getting excited now. "What if the Chief Trainer wrote up all his final thoughts when he finished his duty? Like a…a…what's that called?"

"Like a Reflections?"

"Yes! A Reflections," Thor said, already stepping sideways as he scanned the shelves, looking for the beginning of this section of similar-looking books. "There's where they start," he said, pointing up to the very top shelf in the section he'd stopped in front of.

"I'll go get the ladder," Loki said, hurrying off.

Thor looked up. He was tall, but the top shelf was four shelves above him. Still, time was short, and he really didn't need a ladder. He nudged the books on the third shelf from the bottom back a bit, making a perfect foothold. The shelves, he found, weren't quite as sturdy as he expected – his weight had increased with his passage into adulthood – but they held him up. He was a couple of shelves higher and almost in reaching distance of the top when the whole section started to wobble. He held himself still for a few seconds, then slowly and carefully planted his foot on the next shelf up. When he started to push up, shifting his weight onto his higher foot, the section started tipping. Thor gripped the top shelf tightly and pressed his body as close to the shelves as he could, but gravity had grabbed hold and wasn't letting go and Thor was falling, squeezing his eyes shut as books slid straight into his face and pelted him from above.

/

Two or three more chapters after this. One thing: I don't have home access to internet right now, so in a bit of "Beneath-verse" trivia that most of you won't care about but I definitely do, I can't remember if the 20th birthday celebration is called the "Proclaiming," I'm thinking it's actually the 10th birthday milestone. But quick searches didn't help me out on the terminology I made up quite a long time ago, and quick searches is all I have time for right now. If anyone happens to remember that little detail, do share. :-)