SHADOW OF DEATH

Chapter 41: Convergence

"Can you sit up?" Shuri asked as she squeezed her brother's hand. He gave a weak smile and let her help him up. He leaned heavily against his pillow and closed his eyes. "You look terrible," Shuri said. She put a cup of hot uji in his hands and helped him drink from it.

"I cannot say you appear much better. Dada, your face is tear-stained. What has occurred while I slept?" he asked.

"The mgeni has left again," she answered.

"Gulu as well?"

"Yes. Gulu departed, though he waited for his son to leave first and they did not travel together."

"And this is the wellspring of your tears?"

"Yes…no…," Shuri began to say and then bit her lower lip to keep her tears constrained. T'Challa gave her a concerned look and placed the cup of uji on his lap. She forced a smile and placed her small hand on top of his massive one. She inhaled deeply. "It is Baba…and you…and Jane left with him, the mgeni, and I wanted to go too…I wanted to help and he said 'no' and now I am stuck here… but not here because he wishes for me to go to Birnin Zana to help there, but I do not want to leave you and Mama and I am still so angry with our uncle's son that I wish I could fight him myself and tear him apart, limb from limb, but now is not the time for that, but it should be because Baba…and you…and…." Shuri's tears stole all her remaining breath from her tirade and forced her to bury her head against her brother's chest.

T'Challa was torn between laughing and joining her in sorrow. He placed one hand on her braided head and allowed her to cry. When her chest no longer heaved and the tears slowed, she raised her head and began to fuss over his forgotten meal.

"Eat, eat. You need your strength," she said. She forced the cup back into his hand and gave him a pointed stare until he obeyed and took another drink. "Have I told you how glad I am you are still alive?"

"Only a hundred times this morning," her brother answered. "I should nearly die more often if it means you will be this appreciative of me."

"If you come this close to dying again, I will kill you myself," Shuri responded. "Do you know how worried I have been? And Mama…"

"Shhhhh, Dada," T'Challa responded. "More apologies will not erase the past. I did all I could and I failed and now we are here."

"I would rather have a living failure for a brother than a dead victor."

"Mmmm," T'Challa said. "Tell me, was the funeral for Baba conducted properly? Did our cousin manage to remember our father well?"

"Not so well as he deserved," Shuri said. "The rituals and the words were as they should be for a king, but the heart and motivation that inspired the actions were not as they should be, or so Ayo told me. The tears of Wakanda were more genuine than the tears shed by the new king and so that will need to be enough for now. We will hold another memorial at his grave once you are well and then he will be grieved as a father instead of as a king."

T'Challa closed his eyes and nodded, fighting against the sudden wave of emotion that weighed heavily on his face. "You will leave when?"

"Tomorrow but one," Shuri answered. "I travel to Kampala to speak with that man who came with N'Jadaka and took Baba away. You remember the one? He wore a patch over one eye and was called, what was he called? General Anger, is it? Director Terror maybe? I do not remember, only that his named matched his very displeased-looking face and I did not like him so much. Then again, he did attack our country and steal my father and helped put my angry cousin on the throne, so I still do not think I will like him. But, I am to speak with him about some of the prototypes the mgeni and I were testing before the mgeni left Wakanda. We have too, too much to do to prepare for this other alien. What is his name? I do not remember, only that he is angry, too. The Mad Crouton, is it? I wonder why so many of these big men are so upset? I do not think I have met any woman who has such a name."

T'Challa laughed, but the exertion led to a grimace of pain to cross his face. He tried to hide it, but Shuri was too quick and she frowned.

"I wish I were not leaving. You are not well and you should have me to look after you. I should not bring two of the Dora Milaje with me. I could leave one behind so you have more protection."

"Eh? What is this? Even two is too little. I do not like to hear of you traveling with so few guards," T'Challa said. A small furrow developed between his dark eyebrows in worry and it grew even deeper when he caught Shuri's answering shrug.

"I should act very offended at your lack of confidence in my abilities, but until you are able to sit up in bed on your own, I will content myself with the look I will see on your face when I say, 'Try and stop me.'"

T'Challa's exasperated sigh made Shuri grin. "Do not worry, brother. Usiwe wasi wasi. I will have the two Dora Milaje. They can handle most threats. Then, the prince told the alien paka to look after me until he returns. And the paka appears to be obeying the mgeni, for now.

"Oh, Prince Loki was furious when he discovered that it was his father who appointed Goose to look after him. The prince might even be as proud and stubborn as you and he did not like his father sending, what he called, a 'furry nursemaid' to take care of him as if he were a child. I wish I recorded the argument that followed between the pair. It rivalled the argument I once had with Baba after he discovered I hacked into the U.N.'s intelligence files and he forced me to stay upcountry herding goats for two months."

T'Challa chuckled and rubbed at his beard with his hands. "I remember. You managed to build a solar-powered computer for yourself in Mama D'Jugu's goat shed out of your kimoyo beads and an old tractor. Baba was so impressed he made you stay there another month to see what else you could develop that could assist in agriculture in other parts of the country."

Shuri's smile grew sad before she forced herself to shrug and focus again on the present. "See what a promotion I have been granted? Now I get to build toys to use in space! "

"Eeeee! I cannot stop you until I get my strength back so it will not be up to me. Be careful, sister. Wakanda has seen more sadness than a calabash sees malwa."

She nodded. "Mama will come after she finished speaking with M'Baku. Sleep now."

His eyes were closed before she left the room. She paused, then, and lingered next to the door, still unwilling to leave her brother's side. His unexpected resurrection was still so new, so fragile, that she feared if she blinked, she would find it was all a dream. She stood straight and swung around when she heard someone clear their throat from the shadows behind her.

"So, when's the wedding, Queen?" came a gruff, thick accent.

"Sergeant Barnes," she said, with a nod of her head. "Thank you for looking after my brother. My heart is at peace knowing you are the one guarding his door."

The briefest flash of a smile crossed his lips and he returned her nod. "I am happy to be useful. So, I heard you will soon become queen of Wakanda. Congratulations, your majesty."

"Hapana, bwana. Temporary queen, I hope. It is only for as long as N'Jadaka stays in Washington D.C. and deals with these extraterrestrial threats."

"And Black Panther?"

She frowned. "Indio. In times, such as these, Wakanda must have a Black Panther. I do not like it, but it is the law. It is all wrong. Why am I the one to lead Wakanda, and now of all times? If I was not eighteen, then succession would fall on another cousin and I would not have to deal with N'Jadaka and everything else."

"Don't sell yourself short, kid. Wakanda couldn't ask for a better queen. You'll do swell."

"Asante, bwana," she said with a sigh, but her heart wasn't truly in it.

"Now, you didn't answer my question. When's the wedding?" he repeated.

"Nani? Who is getting married?"

"We are, of course. I don't go back on my promises, oh queen. I'm assuming you have to marry your first husband before our wedding can occur, or it would be difficult to make me your second husband. So, I gotta prepare myself ahead of time."

She laughed, genuinely this time, and pushed his shoulder with her fist. "I was not serious."

"Oh, but you were."

"How do you even remember that?"

"I suppose it made an impression. I can't say I've been proposed to by a dame that many times in my life. Tell me, was it my rugged good looks or my exotic charm that set me apart?"

Shuri hid her face in her hands and giggled. "I would say yes to both, but then I would be a liar. No, that day, T'Challa and I were speaking of our past kings and their many wives and all the challenges such large families produced. Well, Wakanda has had so very few queens in our history and so I do not have many examples to follow. I told my brother if I was ever made queen, then I would follow the example of our kings and take a large number of husbands. He said I could not. We argued about a great many things until we found you at your home."

"I figured it was something like that. You also didn't think you would be queen."

"Ni kweli. I did not... not even a temporary queen. There are too, too many things that are not as I expected them to be."

"Well, then, it will be my honor to temporarily be second husband to a queen," he said and winked. "You be safe now and don't worry about your brother. I got him."

"Asante," she answered and clasped his hand in her own.

"Promise me, when my brother wakes, that you tell him you are now to be brothers by marriage and that he needs to arrange my first marriage along with my second. Have Mama record his reaction. I will need something to make me laugh while I am away."

"You got it, queen."

Oooo

Odin's words ricocheted through Loki's mind like an ax head off a stone. "My time draws near. My strength is failing," he had said. He spoke as if he knew the day he would join the halls of his ancestors, as if it were soon approaching. It was true that Odin had grown in frailty since Loki last saw him, but he still seemed hale and strong. Loki could not fathom it. The All-Father could not die, or so he had believed since he was a small boy. Odin's words and warnings were as incomprehensible as cold fire or dry water, almost as incomprehensible as the All-Father's sudden appearance on Midgard or the lack of retribution poured upon Loki in their first reunion since That Day. At any moment, Loki expected to find himself the object of a great jest and find his hands encased in manacles and an ax waiting for him in Asgard. Instead, Odin gave him instructions to leave immediately.

It was unfathomable.

Almost as unfathomable as the idea of the Aesir evacuating Asgard. For Asgard, the Eternal City, the Jewel of Yggdrasil's Crown, to empty itself of civilians in preparation for an upcoming battle was something that had never been done in the long years since its founding.

Their parting of ways was hardly memorable.

"I will stay on Midgard until the time I am required elsewhere," were his final words to his adopted and disgraced son.

"Will you not tire of stooping to remain with the mortal ants?" came Loki's reply and Odin neither reprimanded him nor answered his (almost ingenuine) jest.

With a flash of his one eye, a nod of his wizened, grizzled old head, and Odin vanished in a flash of light from the Casket of Ancient Winters. The All-Father did not so much as blink when Loki produced the relic, much to Loki's disappointment. He had hoped to unsettle the old man in some way and not face that familiar expression of impermeable indifference again.

Loki, more used to the mechanics of traveling by the Ice Casket now, enfolded Jane, Skadmire, and himself in the blue power of the casket and directed their way through the cosmos to their intended destination. It only took three jumps through space to reach the familiar atmosphere of the Realm Eternal and he was not surprised to find Heimdall waiting for them upon their arrival in the broken observatory.

As expected, Jane's eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open as she took in her first glimpse of Asgard. The night sky stretched overhead like a multi-colored tapestry inlaid with gems. The shards of the broken bifrost shone in the lights cast by the observatory's sconces. The palace of Asgard sparkled beyond, the golden towers gleaming and paying tribute to the might of the Realm Eternal. Fires and lights scattered throughout the nearly darkened city gave evidence to where the legions of Asgard lay in wait for the battles Odin anticipated would fall upon them at any moment.

Loki inhaled deeply as a wave of both nostalgia and regret washed over him in equal measures. His home which no longer felt like his home could still call forth an irritatingly poignant amount of sentimentality. He blinked it away and turned his attention to the stoic figure bowing before him.

"My prince," said Asgard's golden-armored gatekeeper.

"Is that what I am now?" Loki said with a scoff. "I believe you were less willing to recognize my authority on our last meeting."

Heimdall's piercing gaze remained unflustered and he stood in unapologetic silence, sword in his hands. Loki rolled his eyes and then noticed he still held the Ice Casket, in almost the exact same position he had held it in when he encased the gatekeeper in solid ice. With a wave of his hands, the relic vanished.

"Lady Jane, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Heimdall said as he nodded towards Jane in greeting.

"Yeah. You too," she said. She glanced between both men, unsure how to proceed, and she shifted her weight from side-to-side. Mjolnir's head protruded from the zipper of her worn backpack, tied loosely with one of Shuri's abandoned cables. Her jeans and flannel shirt marked a stark contrast to the gleam and glitter of Asgard's gilded entrance hall.

"You must make your presence known to the legions and their commanders, my Prince. It will be well for them to know their sovereign has come," Heimdall said. "In the morning, you must depart at first light."

"About that...where precisely will we be going?" Loki asked.

"A dark realm, far outside of the Nine. To some it is called the 'Dominion of Death.' Others refer to it as the 'Center of Celestial Existence.' More commonly, it is spoken of as 'Vormir.' None inhabit that realm save one and I can see very little of its strange inhabitant or the land itself. A heaviness...almost a murkiness...lies upon that land. It is as if it were covered in deep waters that my sight cannot penetrate. I cannot see the object that you seek, but I have heard reliable tales that it is guarded there."

"From whom did you receive these accounts?"

Heimdall paused and cocked his head to one side. "Around half a century or so ago, the old inhabitant of the land vanished and transported by the power of the Tesseract, a new inhabitant broke through Yggdrasil's branches and came to rest there. The Stone, knowing its old keeper was no more, called a new one to itself to guard its secrets. Then, while the Titan dwells in a crevice of the universe, partially obscured from my sight, his servants do not always remain at his side. When he sent his most faithful followers to search out the Stones, his daughter proved successful in discovering the final resting place of the Stone you seek."

Loki froze mid-stride at the reference to Thanos' adopted kin. He let out a sharp gasp as the memories of his time under the thumb of the Titan flooded his consciousness. He had worked so hard to throw off those years from his mind, to forget them, to stomp them out like a campfire at dawn. He couldn't entirely forget. He knew the 'daughters' of the Titan. They followed his commands like well-trained hunting dogs sent to retrieve a downed pheasant and their mercy for captives as abounding as their sisterly affection. The pair reminded him of a pair of vipers, one blue and one green, coiled together in deadly grace, ready to strike an unsuspecting victim with their poisonous jaws without warning.

While they were both claimed by the Titan, they were not equal. One easily held his favor while the other worked tirelessly, relentlessly to earn what would never be hers. From his perch on Thanos' ship, he watched them train. Again and again, they sparred. Again and again, one won and the other cried in fury for a rematch. Instead, she received Thanos' silent glance. That icy blue expression of indifference that fell upon her each time, no longer even disappointed or surprised at her loss, but accepting of it...expecting it...that expression haunted his dreams in their despicable familiarity.

It was the lesser daughter, the unworthy daughter, who took a determined dislike of Thanos' newest Asgardian "pet" when he arrived. The favored daughter could not be bothered to give him a second glance. He was as inconsequential as he was disposable. To the lesser, he was a mirror of her own postulant internal wounds and she loathed him nearly as much as she loathed herself. Every opportunity she came by, she used to strike him with her fists or with her words.

"You are despicable," she cried as she held the pointed edge of the scepter at his throat. He lay bound, gagged, and unable to move at her feet, a myriad of wounds bleeding onto the jagged floor. "Is there anything you would not do to win the favor of your father? Is there anything you would not do to prove your worth over your brother's? I will tell you something, Asgardian vermin, not until you have erased and replaced every single part of your flawed and despicable natal self will you be worth anything in this universe."

She paused to dig the heel of her boot into his abdomen until blood spurted out of his mouth. Her blue, mechanical mouth gave a sadistic smile and she drew the blade of the scepter along his brow until the blood freely dripped in a cascade into his eyes.

"You, Lie-Smith, cannot deceive me. I see all. You think you can save the Terran insects from my father's grasp. You think you can go against his glorious purpose? You are a fool. You cannot change anything. This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer. You are pathetic. Who are you? You pretend it is to serve your kingdom and your father, but you lie to yourself most of all. You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away. You are the horror," she said as her voice dropped down to the cadence of a whisper.

Then the scepter glowed as its power ravished his mind again and his secrets poured out to the one who wielded it, whether he wished them to or no. She would not forget them. She would never forget them. She would make sure he could not forget them either.

"My Prince?" Heimdall said, his voice breaking through Loki's momentary distraction. Loki shook his head slightly and continued walking.

"If they know, then Thanos knows," Loki said.

"Then you will understand why you must leave at first light. The Titan leaves his barren asteroid and travels ever nearer to Yggdrasil and into my sight. Even now, travels to find his daughter to force her to give him the coordinates."

oooooo

"This is beautiful," Jane said. She spun around the palace guest room as if taking in a magnificent work of art and not a four-postered bed in an undamaged wing of the palace.

"It will do for the night," Loki responded. "I am afraid few servants remain and so you will suffer less than acceptable hospitality."

"Where did you send Skadmire?" she asked.

"Jotunheim. There is a small portal near the palace that connects the realms. He has promised to inform the new king about Hela's impending return and the danger of the Power Stone. While I suppose inviting an army of Jotnar into Asgard would typically be considered a terrible idea, under the present circumstances, I find it rather a comforting notion. Ah, how quickly things change!"

"So most of the people have gone to Earth, then?" Jane asked. She took her backpack off and unceremoniously dropped it on a chair. She tugged at the band in her hair and it fell in rumpled waves down her shoulders.

"Yes."

"How long will it take them to get there?"

"In a fortnight, perhaps. If they had departed Asgard only a few days earlier, they perhaps could have discovered a quicker route with the assistance of the Convergence, but they will now be required to take the longer route."

"Yeah, I heard Heimdall mention the Convergence. If you didn't give me such a dirty look, I would have asked him a million questions about it…what? Don't give me that look again. I could tell you didn't want me to interrupt and that we were in a hurry to go talk to all those soldiers, but come on. All the realms aligning together and making pathways between? That's like beyond my wildest dreams! I had some of my readings from one of the satellite telescopes going a bit crazy, but I was so busy running tests on that Casket thingy of yours that I couldn't spend much time looking at it. What's it like? Did you see the last Convergence?"

"Come now, Jane. How old do you think I am? I am not sure whether to be offended by your assessment of the age of my person or flattered by your assessment of my wisdom and maturity."

"I take that as a 'no.'"

"The last Convergence was near 5,000 Midgardian years ago, before even the birth of the All-Father."

"OK. Five thousand years is a lot. Now I'm even more upset that I missed this one. I am going to hold you personally responsible for making me miss it."

Loki gave her an impassive toss of his head. "I prefer to ensure the Nine Realms survive until the next Convergence than waste time studying this past one in all its magnificent minutiae, as you would most likely wish to do."

At her expression he sighed and pulled over one of the chairs to sit in front of the fireplace. He pulled over a second chair before conjuring a fire to cast the lingering chill out of the empty room. With so few inhabitants, the palace felt a yawning emptiness about it that he did not like. When Jane sat he gave her an expression half-indulgent, half-irritated, and decided to humor her curiosity.

"Our bards compare the universe to a tapestry. They say the Great Weaver wove the immense, layered tapestry of the universe with magic that transcends the powers of both time and fate. In the center, the Weaver placed the mighty tree of Yggdrasil, the crown of the tapestry. All the Nine are interconnected through Yggdrasil's branches and trunk. Once every epoch, all Nine align during a mystical time known as the Convergence, when the threads between realms disintegrate and movement between the realms is as easy as a squirrel climbing the branches of a tree.

"The legends say that all life in Yggdrasil is interrelated. This explains the similarities in animals, flora, and fauna across realms. These similarities between realms are distinct from the planets outside of the Nine where there is a much greater diversity of life forms. Within the Nine, we are interconnected. Oak trees are found on Midgard and Asgard. Variations of what you call horses are found on Vanaheim and Alfheim. Muspelheim and Asgard share similar types of dragons, though adapted to our distinct climates.

"Midgard, as its name implies, it is the middle, the central realm of order. Every Convergence, Midgard is the central pathway to each of the other realms, the crossroads you could say, and this allows the transference of peoples, flora, and fauna between all the realms every 5,000 years. When life from the other realms falls into Midgard, the magic of the land creeps into their blood, teaching them to live and survive and thrive even in places so vastly different than their origin."

"What do you mean by the 'magic of the land'?" Jane asked.

"Each realm has its own magic that permeates the land, strengthens the inhabitants, and gives life to all who dwell there. The magic that holds your realm together is interwoven with change. Midgard is, what you would call, a microcosm of the climate zones of all the other realms. It has ice that rivals Jotunheim, deserts as dry as Muspelheim, jungles as lush as Nidavellir, and mountains as high as Asgard. Its seasons are short and constantly changing. Thus, the creatures upon your realm, also, are constantly changing to adapt to your land in a way not found on the other realms. The diversity of your climatic zones combined with your shorter life spans mean that your are permanently in transition.

"Accordingly, your biology has developed its own magic in your capacity to adapt to the regions in which you dwell for long generations. When Midgardians dwell in placed scorched by the sun, your biology creates protections for your skin. When your peoples dwell on mountains, your biology shifts to create smaller peoples more capable of surviving the rough terrains. When your peoples dwell near malarial swamps, you develop your own genetic protections for your offspring to aid their survival. This is a magic unique to Midgard that is not found on the other realms. The peoples on the other realms do not change or shift. Their magic is old and slow to adapt."

Jane considered him as he spoke and he could nearly see the wheels turning in her head as she sifted through which of her innumerable questions she wished to ask.

"So, basically, every five thousand years, animals and people accidentally fall through a cosmic rabbit hole onto Earth and get trapped here?"

"Rabbit hole? In a stranger, overly simplified manner of speaking, I suppose that explanation is adequate."

"What about...," Jane began, but Loki interrupted her.

"Lady Jane, the hour is growing late and we have much ahead of us in the morn. You can, no doubt, ask questions about the Convergence until a year passes without even pausing to breathe. It is possible you hold your questions until a more opportune time?"

Jane let out a disappointed sigh and then gave a light smile. "Sure. But can I ask a different question...one not related to science or any of this?"

He motioned for her to proceed.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked. "I mean, if you can manage to ditch a Flerkin, I know you could easily have made me stay behind. Why did you let me come?"

"You doubt your powers of persuasion?"

At her expression, he grinned. Then he clasped his hands together in front of his lips. "It is simple. One: you wield Mjolnir, one of the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms and the symbol of Asgard's might and throne. Second: your gift of...differentiating between lies and truth...may prove useful in coming days. Third: you asked to come."

"Flatterer. You sure know how to make a girl feel like a hammer or a finely tuned pickup truck," she said with a grimace.

"You wished for the truth and so I gave it."

"I know."

"Jane," he said, growing more earnest as he spoke. "You must understand, everything I've ever believed is based on lies. Lies upon lies upon lies. I don't even know which side is up or down anymore. From my very face to my family to my history to my place in the Nine, I know nothing and yet I have been placed in positions where my actions may cause the death or life of tens of trillions. How am I supposed to choose rightly if I do not know the truth? How can I know anything if I do not even know who I am?"

She considered him carefully before she shrugged and smiled. She took his hand in hers for a moment. "That is one question I do know the answer to. Nothing has changed. You are still Loki. That's who you have always been."

He groaned. "I am afraid that is not terribly reassuring."

"It's meant to be more reorienting then reassuring."

He let his breath out in a rush.

"I never wanted the throne," he said. "I only ever wanted to be my brother's equal, to have my father's admiration, my brother's respect, to earn the love of our people. I used to think that the former would lead to the latter by necessity. Now I know it is not always so. I will never be a good king, Jane. How am I to do this? Midgard is only now beginning to recover from the Fall. Now is is time for Asgard to fall? Our army is diminished, our city badly damaged from the battles with the Dark Elves. Now, Odin wishes for me to be king after him in my brother's stead. I am not made to be a king, Jane. I am made to cause kingdoms to rise and fall, not rule over them as they crumble."

"I guess these aren't exactly ideal circumstances."

He gave a breathy laugh and shook his head. "Not exactly."

"What do you think your brother would have done, in your place?"

"Smash Thanos on the head with his hammer and then charge Hela like an angered bilgesnipe with absolutely no thought to a plan or his own potential for mortality."

"Do you think he would have succeeded?"

"Inevitably. He was Thor. He was always meant to be the hero. I, well, I was not... I cannot help but think it is all a cruel jest of Fate, a mistake of the Norns, that it is Loki who remains rather than Thor. Will I prove to be the end of my people, the undoing of all the realms? Will it be my hands which cause the unraveling of Yggdrasil?"

"Maybe. Or maybe you will be the end of Thanos and the remaking of all the realms. The future hasn't been written yet."

"We had the means to write it in our grasp, if you remember. Who was it who insisted the Time Stone be destroyed?"

"It was the right thing to do and you know it."

"So what do I do?" he exclaimed. He grasped both of her hands in his, as if she could anchor him into his path like a ship to the shore.

"We go soul-searching... tomorrow," she answered.

ooooo

Translations:

uji: porridge

malwa: millet beer

mgeni: visitor/outsider

dada: sister

baba: father

paka: cat

usiwe wasi wasi: don't worry