Beneath
Chapter Forty-Nine – Shadows
Seven realms united in war against Asgard. Leaning against a wall in the healing room, Loki struggled to come to terms with everything he'd just learned, and most importantly what it meant for him. Regarding his most immediate plans, it meant he was no better off seeking assistance on Alfheim than he was on Svartalfheim.
"Hey, you, I told you, you need to go to one of the chambers set up for severe injuries," the healer-in-training said, pulling Loki from his thoughts. He was treating a leg wound several feet away from him. "I don't have time to do it myself, it'll take me too long, if I could finish it at all."
Loki nodded and moved away from the wall to comply, or at least to pretend to, not wanting to draw any further attention to himself.
"Thanks for letting me try, by the way. I've never done anything like that before."
Loki responded with a polite but cool nod, and slipped out of the room before the boy could seek further interaction. He was almost back to the outer door, a cluster of healed warriors rushing past him, when he heard a woman's voice calling for "you with the magic-infused injury." Loki paused, recalling for half a second what it felt like to sit on Asgard's throne and be addressed as "Your Majesty." He turned to face the woman who'd called to him.
"Eir wants to see you. Come with me." She put a hand firmly against the small of his back and immediately began urging him along, past the outer door.
Loki kept his head still but cast his gaze around him constantly. The central corridor was full of warriors and healers; any attempt to flee at this point would put him in great danger. But so would attempting to fool Eir with this flimsy disguise, no more than a change of hair color, a beard, simple attire. Lying to her at all would be a challenge – he'd rarely tried it, had rarely wanted to. If Loki had ever been completely honest, or very close to it, with anyone it was with her, because she'd always been completely honest with him. Which was ironic, because he'd realized during his time with The Other that Eir had been his personal liar as well as his personal healer. There had to be a reason even his most insignificant childhood injuries and illnesses were treated by Eir, while Thor's skinned knees and runny noses had been treated by whichever healer was on duty. She knew what he was.
"That boy's work was sufficient. I need to get back to the battle," Loki said, trying to reverse his direction.
"Fridulf didn't even get to the healing, and he said he only removed part of the magic. You wouldn't be able to lift a sword," the woman said, her arm a firm pressure against his back. Loki couldn't get away from her without causing a scene.
"Get yourself treated," said a gruff-sounding heavily muscled warrior matching their pace, holding a red-stained cloth over a bleeding gash just above his ear. Loki immediately recognized him as one of his former trainers. "The Dark Elves sent us an army, but we've moved in reinforcements from the northern and western sectors. We can handle them."
Loki kept his head down and nodded; veteran warrior Sorkvir soon broke off and entered a chamber to the left. He lost track for a moment of where he was. Something bothered him about what Sorkvir had said, something just on the edge of consciousness, just out of reach.
The healer ushered him into the most private area of the healing room complex, where the most dire or strange cases were treated, or where senior figures including the royal family could be given special attention. Comfortable sofas lined the walls of this vestibule, but no one else, including Eir, was there.
"Wait here. Eir's busy. We all are. But she wants to see you. We haven't seen any other cases like yours from this war."
Loki dutifully sat, but stood again as soon as the woman hurried off. There were two doors. The one nearest him, to his right, led back out to the main corridor and eventually to the exit. The door to the left led to the private rooms he knew well from his childhood and youth. Where his mother might be, if she had been injured badly enough to still be here. He crossed the vestibule and went through the far door.
The doors along this empty corridor were solid, meant to protect the privacy of those within. He began systematically checking the rooms on both sides, taking just a couple of silent steps in to see who was there. Some rooms were empty, others housed a sleeping patient or someone who looked up at him in confusion. He couldn't linger long here. He reached the end of the corridor and stepped into the next-to-last room, then froze in place. He hadn't recognized any of the six others he'd seen, but this face he knew well, and in fact could not remember ever not knowing it.
Jolgeir. One of the Einherjar charged with protecting him and Thor before they came of age, and the only one of them Loki had ever gotten to know on something of a personal basis. Now Chief Palace Einherjar – the last Loki knew, anyway – he lay flat on his back in bed, covered up to his neck in a thick blue blanket, head supported by a pillow covered in white linen.
Jolgeir angled his head in Loki's direction. "Who's there? I can tell someone's there. I can see the shadows. Announce yourself."
"Who's there?" Jolgeir demanded, falling still and silent as he neared the end of the corridor.
Loki remained in position, doing his best to quiet even his heartbeat, which now seemed unnaturally loud.
"Loki?" he asked.
Loki sighed and stepped out from the shadows, where he'd flattened himself against the wall behind the narrow protrusion of a support column running alongside the stairs. "How did you do that? I know I never made a sound."
"You didn't. But there was a slight difference in the shade of the shadows. And after nine years, I know the shadows on this corridor very well."
Loki shook his head. There was always something more to take into account. "I'll never be as good at this as you are." He was nineteen, soon to no longer have Einherjar nursemaids dedicated to his safety and protection everywhere he went; when he turned twenty, Jolgeir would be taking over as head of his younger brother Baldur's security team.
"I've had a few centuries of practice, Loki," he said with a chuckle. "But you're already very good. You had only the time that I made my patrol to the other end of the corridor and turned back to get from your chambers and into position. I never heard a thing."
A grin spread over Loki's face. "I didn't come from my chambers. I came from the stairs."
Jolgeir's eyebrows went up, disappearing underneath his helmet. "I'm impressed. Clearly I need to pay more attention to the stairs on my patrols. You'll make me a better Einherjar, Prince Loki."
Jolgeir's face set into something fierce, and he sat up slowly. The covers fell from his bare chest as he did so, and Loki couldn't stop a gasp at what he saw. Where there should have been arms there were only stumps, ending not far below the shoulder.
Ancient memories came flooding back. Memories of Jolgeir's arms, warm and strong and safe. The incident he'd dreamed about under The Other's manipulation, but hadn't been able to recall the reality of afterward. Now he remembered. He and Thor had been out mushroom-picking with two of their nursemaids, and the women were lingering over their picnic lunch in a forest clearing while the boys ran around playing. Their running about brought them in sight of a lake with a long narrow pier. Loki had hated the water then, and Thor predictably had completely ignored what Loki thought. "Don't worry, Loki, it'll be fun! I'll hold onto you." Thor probably said other things – he talked enough for the both of them in those days – but Loki mostly remembered "It'll be fun," and how convinced Thor sounded of it, no matter how little of his enthusiasm Loki shared. He saw it all again in the blink of an eye, a child's eye.
"Give me your feet."
Five-year-old Loki obediently lifted first one foot, then the other, for his six-year-old brother to tug off his boots.
"Come on, hurry, they'll see us," Thor said, taking Loki's hand and running for the pier.
"I don't want to, Thor," Loki said again softly when they stopped almost at the end of the pier. His gaze was fixed worriedly on the smooth silver surface of the lake.
Thor was busy pulling his tunic over his head and didn't seem to hear him. "Loki, come on!" he urged when his tunic was laying on the dock and Loki's was still on. Thor started pulling at the hem, and Loki put his arms up to let Thor take it off. Loki's ability to speak withered away under his crushing fear. As soon as the tunic was off and his vision clear of it his eyes were again locked on the water.
"Let's go," Thor said, once more grabbing for Loki's hand and running. In just a few steps they were at the pier's edge; Loki stopped, but Thor did not, and Loki was pulled over the edge by Thor's grip on his hand.
His mouth opened but he didn't cry out; water immediately rushed in. His eyes were squeezed shut and though he desperately wanted up he wasn't sure where up was. He thrashed about in a panic, kicking and thrashing harder when he felt something grabbing at his arms and legs. His head broke the surface finally; he could tell because he was suddenly gulping mostly air instead of water. Thor was shouting at him and reaching for his arms, but he slipped below the surface, choking on more water, then struggling and churning up water and losing sight of where up was again.
Then there were strong arms under his, lifting him from the water. He was pressed against a warm armored chest, his head over a shoulder, a hand lightly thumping his back. He coughed up water. The man began to move forward and, on the burst of adrenaline still coursing through him, Loki clutched his arms around the man's neck as though clinging to life itself, and his legs gripped the man's sides. He didn't know and didn't care in the slightest who was holding him, but once they were out of the water his eyes opened to slits and he recognized the golden orange of the fabric beneath his chin, then the dark hair, almost as dark as his, against his cheek.
Jolgeir. In that moment, he loved Jolgeir as much as he had ever loved any member of his family. His nursemaids approached, but he refused to let go of Jolgeir, who carried him all the way back to the palace and to his mother, who Loki finally allowed himself to be passed to. Thor, who followed with the women, was crying at his feet, but Loki ignored him, intending never to talk to him again forever. He slept between his parents that night, and the next morning Thor made a supervised apology that ended with both boys crying and then hugging. When Mother took them out to play after breakfast, as soon as Loki caught sight of Jolgeir keeping watch he ran to him with outstretched arms, and Jolgeir scooped him up into his own muscled arms, gentle and caring although they held weapons far more often than five-year-old boys.
"Announce yourself this instant," Jolgeir commanded, and if Loki hadn't seen him he would think the man held a sword in each hand.
Loki tore his eyes away from the missing arms and noticed the reddening of Jolgeir's face, the trembling of the muscles in his torso, and he realized how much effort it was costing him to sit up like that without the support of arms.
"Lie back," he quickly said, pitching his voice a little lower, but otherwise unconcerned that Jolgeir might recognize his voice; the two had barely spoken since the days after Baldur's death. "I'm a healer. Here to check on you." He stepped further into the room, reaching the foot of the bed.
"Ah," Jolgeir simply said, his voice tight, then released a quick gasp of air when his head made it back to the pillow.
"I'm new to your case. Please tell me what has happened to you."
Jolgeir chuckled, and Loki watched his eyes, which stared blankly at the ceiling. "If I have to do that, you still have many years of training ahead of you, friend. And perhaps a check of your own vision."
"I can see" – Loki grimaced – "the results. But what caused your injuries?"
"The explosion in the throne room. They say I was close to the wall that exploded, and I must have been reaching for something. I don't remember it."
Loki continued to stare. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd pictured before, once he'd learned Asgard was at war, but it wasn't this. It wasn't…it wasn't this. He stepped closer and pulled the blanket back up to Jolgeir's neck, as it had been before. "I…I heard the queen was nearby when it happened."
"The queen? No, she was in her chambers, so I was told."
Loki's eyes drifted closed in relief. "That is good," he simply said. The Aesir storyteller on Svartalfheim had been mistaken. His eyes opened again, narrowed in suspicion. The Aesir storyteller was masquerading as Vanir. He was lying. He was manipulating. He was attempting to persuade the tavern's patrons that Vanaheim, Svartalfheim's new ally, had acted dishonorably. Treacherously. Killing unarmed women, nearly killing the queen, when the queen had in fact been nowhere near the explosion. He was attempting to sway the populace to oppose the war, perhaps one tavern at a time. By himself this lone Aesir would have little impact, but if part of a larger plan, it was brilliant. Loki wondered who had thought of such a plan, for it sounded like something he might have proposed, and all of Asgard would have derided him for it.
"The king was nearby but unharmed," Jolgeir was saying meanwhile, and Loki turned his attention back to the Einherjar. "Prince Thor was much closer and was injured, but they told me he's recovered fully."
Loki swallowed. "That is also good," he managed to get out. He didn't wish to dwell on Thor, although it was beginning to seem unavoidable.
"All of Asgard breathed a sigh of relief. You know, centuries ago, over a millennium ago now, I suppose, I provided security for both the princes when they were children. I was fond of them both. Full of enough energy and mischief to keep an Einherjar on his toes. If only we had both of them here fighting for us."
Loki opened his mouth but no words would come. Known for his skill with words, he was, for all intents and purposes, speechless. He resented Jolgeir along with all the rest of the Aesir. Did Jolgeir, too, know what he really was? Were the ones tasked with his protection told exactly what they were protecting? Jolgeir had seemed to care, had seemed fond of him. He could have let him slip beneath the surface of the water one final time, and the bastard prince would have been no more. Of course, he would certainly have lost his position then, and Thor would have been devastated to lose his obedient little shadow. Saving him, no matter the secrets of his birth, was the only logical course of action, he thought with acid in his throat.
But maybe, maybe, Jolgeir had simply seen a terrified child starting to drown and saved him out of selfless compassion.
Selfless compassion, Loki scoffed, his lips twisting into something ugly under his beard and mustache. You say you wish for me here because you know you still risk treason if you don't. Jolgeir had also arrested him for Baldur's murder.
"I must go," Loki said, turning on his heel.
"Wait!" Jolgeir called; Loki stopped and turned back. "I thought you… Eir had just finished working on my shoulder, and she was about to give my eyes another treatment. She thinks my vision will return in time. But then the attack came and she had to get everything ready. Perhaps you could treat my eyes?"
Loki looked at the man, now lifting his neck and turning his gaze in Loki's direction. His healing skills went well beyond basic field medicine, many of them learned from Eir herself, but he knew very little about eyes. "I'm sorry, I cannot. It's beyond my training."
"You could try. I trust you."
He knows. The thought burned through Loki's brain. He wasn't sure how Jolgeir knew, and he wasn't even sure how he knew that Jolgeir knew. It was irrelevant, though. He knows. He tensed, preparing to make yet another escape. But Jolgeir neither called him out nor said anything further at all. He simply lay there, eyes turned in his direction.
In the end it was Loki who broke the silence. "You've always been good at seeing what can't be seen. I'm sure your eyes will be fine."
"I hope you're correct. I won't be able to resume my duties if my eyesight doesn't return," Jolgeir said with a wry smile that didn't quite convey the humor it seemed intended to. Lacking arms with which to raise weapons or even to pull children from lakes, Jolgeir was never going to resume his duties. Others would guard the palace and its inhabitants; others would fight the wars.
Loki pictured the men fighting even now, defending the realm he'd been told was his, the realm he'd ruled, the realm he detested, the realm he never wished to see again unless it was from the vantage point of the throne, the realm he needed to leave.
He was about to turn to go a second time, when the unknown thing that had been bothering him earlier came to mind again, this time tying itself to the battle he'd just been imagining. "The battle is where…to the east? And reinforcements have been pulled from the west and the north?"
Jolgeir furrowed his brow. "I don't know about any reinforcements, but yes, the attack was outside the wall, to the east."
"Not the Felingard Forest. Not if you want him to live," the Svartalf warrior Terek had said. The Felingard Forest was to the west. "Then they are vulnerable to the north and west now." Loki hesitated. This wasn't his battle, it wasn't his war, it wasn't his realm. But he would not see Gullveig nor any other interloper on Asgard's throne. "They are vulnerable in the Felingard Forest."
Surprise flashed over Jolgeir's face, followed by worry. "My horn, where's my ram's horn? Do you see it?" He began to lift himself into a sitting position again.
"On the table near the head of the bed. To your left," Loki said, turning a third and final time to leave. He heard a grunt from Jolgeir and the rustling of bedcovers and looked over his shoulder to see he'd already started pivoting and twisting and rocking and working his legs over the side of the bed. "And you should speak to a palace servant named Vigdis," he said, just as he reached the door. A loud thud was Jolgeir's only response. Loki did not turn again as he opened the door and walked out. He wasn't here to look out for Jolgeir or anyone else other than himself. Besides, Jolgeir was both strong and clever; no fall was going to stop him, and he would probably see assistance as an insult, were Loki inclined to provide it.
Loki was about halfway back down the corridor to the private wing's vestibule when the door ahead of him started to open, started to close, then jerkily opened wider and someone came through, awkwardly holding the door open with the side of an arm while leaning heavily on two wooden canes, a bulging satchel hanging on one shoulder. Loki dropped his head to hide his shock – and his face in general – when he realized it was Hogun.
"Who are you?" Hogun asked, that ever-present note of suspicion in his voice, which betrayed no weakness.
Loki knew him well enough to know that he hadn't given him any cause for true suspicion; it was simply Hogun's nature to be suspicious and skeptical. The only people who should be in this wing were patients, healers, and approved visitors. Loki also knew how to respond to prevent any escalation of his suspicion. He lifted his head, displaying complete confidence. "Mika Alfarson," Loki said, pitching his voice entirely differently from his own, lower, a little quicker, different cadence. "I was visiting my cousin after getting my own injury treated. Who are you?" He said the last just a couple of feet from Hogun, as he passed him, meeting his gaze in challenge, conveying resentment over his presence here being questioned by someone with a name and a position but no real authority. Resentment over Hogun questioning the king he'd taken a knee before not so long ago. Resentment over Hogun having more sway in the palace than he did. A thousand years of resentments. It was an easy role to play. He reached the door, pulled it open, and strode through.
/
/
In the middle of the night, Jane lay awake looking at the stars glowing from her ceiling, the stars Pepper had sent. Tomorrow was Monday. Technically, it was already tomorrow. Loki wasn't coming back. He was safe on Asgard. He had to be; the alternative was too horrific to contemplate. Monday was another D-Day: decision day. Lucas was gone, and he wasn't coming back. She'd racked her brains to come up with some way of explaining his absence that wouldn't result in her life here becoming a living hell.
The more she'd thought about it, the more she'd realized that the reaction to the fact that Lucas Cane was actually Loki, wasn't going to be positive in more ways than she'd initially thought. It was going to be directed at her. She would be blamed. No longer would she be the formerly anti-social scientist. Now she would be That Person who brought the guy last seen trying to destroy Manhattan to the safest place on Earth. Unwittingly so, but she doubted that would win her many points back, since she'd also failed to tell anyone about it after she learned the truth. She would be an outcast. A leper. Maybe Rodrigo would still be nice to her. He was nice to everyone.
She could say she'd killed him…and dropped his body down a crevasse somewhere… Not much of an improvement in her ability to live a normal life here. She could say he was just missing, just disappeared, but in the long history of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, that had never happened. A few people had died, yes, but no one just disappeared. She would never be able to say any of that stuff with a straight face, anyway.
No, it was going to have to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Mostly. Maybe.
She groaned and rolled over, pressing her face into the pillow.
When her alarm clock went off she was so tired she didn't realize what that annoying sound was or where it was coming from for a couple of minutes. She had a headache and downed as much water as she could take, then got ready to face the day. To face the decisions she still had to make. She sat down at her laptop and powered it up. Still no new e-mails, she saw, scrunching up her face. She hadn't had any new ones since…Friday? She checked. Yes, Friday. The day before Loki left.
Realization dawned on her. He wasn't doing some magic thing on her e-mails, making sure she didn't tell anyone about him; he'd somehow broken into her e-mail account. She didn't send or receive anything without him seeing and approving it first, or at least that was what seemed most likely. Great. You couldn't fix that before you left? And then there were the heebie-jeebies that came from knowing Loki had read every single e-mail she'd sent and received the whole time she'd been here. While she accused everyone else around her – in her mind at least – of being a spy.
She still had VOIP…unless he'd done something to that too…and she still had the sat phones. Those worked, or else he wouldn't have been so eager to make sure she returned the one she'd commandeered. She shuddered remembering that confrontation in the hallway. It seemed like ages ago but not quite a week had gone by since then.
It was mid-afternoon on the east coast of the US, where Tony was, as far as she knew, and where SHIELD was headquartered. A great time to call.
She left and went to grab some breakfast. Made-to-order egg-white omelet. She scowled again at Loki's distaste for the food here. She figured she'd never eaten better – or more regularly – since childhood, though she did miss the fresh vegetables and real milk. Even then, at least there was the greenhouse, and the occasional fresh tomato or zucchini or cabbage. Macy who ran the greenhouse happened to join her then, and Jane was glad of the distraction.
Afterward Jane walked slowly to the Science Lab. It was tempting not to call anyone until she had left here. Calling SHIELD made sense when Loki was actually still here. What was the point of it now? "Yeah, Loki, he was here, but no need to go breaking out the big guns, he's gone already, not coming back. Just thought I'd let you know." A courtesy call, or an FYI. What was SHIELD going to do about it? Write it down in a file somewhere? She didn't need a rescue anymore.
The only reason to call them was because of Lucas's disappearance. And a restless night hadn't given her any more brilliant ideas about that one. Only increasingly absurd ones. "Lucas? Lucas who? Never heard of him. Extreme isolation, constant light followed by constant darkness, constant cold followed by more constant cold…you all must have hallucinated this Lucas person!"
She circled back to the same place she'd been before: the truth. Lucas was Loki. Loki left.
Oh, no. Her stomach dropped, and somehow she kept walking without displaying much of the panic she suddenly felt. Loki left. She couldn't just say he left. She would have to explain how. Why did I never think that one through?! Pathfinder. No one knew about it. SHIELD would never have approved her use of it, had they known about it. She'd just sent someone outside their solar system, possibly to an entirely different galaxy. She'd gotten in trouble with them once for not getting permission before she powered up a new piece of equipment for the first time. She was supposed to be doing wormhole research here. She'd let herself get talked into pushing forward with Pathfinder and taking what some might, justifiably, call unethical actions. She would have groaned out loud had she not already reached the Science Lab.
A small cluster of researchers – nearly everyone from the Dark Sector and one person from the Clean Sector – had gathered around Wright, sitting at his computer. Selby was at his side, pointing to something on the screen. Jane shot him a glare. The one person she would have felt remotely comfortable talking to about all this.
Except maybe Loki himself. And that stung like acid.
"Hey, Jane, come take a look," Carlo said, catching sight of her and signaling her over.
Selby continued with his explanation of what they were looking at as Wright flipped through several different charts. He didn't need to start over; she realized almost immediately what had them so excited. The South Pole Telescope team thought they'd identified another galaxy cluster via distortions in the Cosmic Microwave Background. She should have been excited. This work dovetailed nicely with her own, because of its relevance to the understanding of dark energy. But she'd hardly thought about dark energy at all since discovering Yggdrasil. They'd discovered what they hoped was a galaxy cluster. She had collected imagery from what may well be another galaxy, and invented intergalactic travel.
She'd caught Lucas's – Loki's – enthusiasm, motivated as it was by something that fell slightly short of the joy of scientific discovery, and she could try to blame his manipulation and lies, but once she'd realized the possibilities of what they'd discovered, she hadn't needed anyone to manipulate her into pursuing it. He'd pushed at times, but if she were honest with herself, she would have gotten there on her own, anyway. Her enthusiasm had been just as strong as Loki's, if not quite as single-minded.
"Anybody home?" Austin was saying, along with a light nudge to her shoulder.
"Yeah, sorry, what?"
"Party tonight, Foster, we're celebrating out at the DSL. Wanna join? I should mention your invitation is contingent on you coughing up a bottle of booze," Wright said.
She glanced at Selby, who seemed to be taking pains to busy himself with something that required him to look away from her. Awkward…but she'd done that before. She could deal with awkward. "Red wine okay?" she asked.
"Wine doesn't count as booze, but fine, we'll make an exception."
"Oh, make sure Lucas knows about it too, okay?" Austin said.
"As long as you explain the price of admission," Wright put in.
Jane nodded and smiled weakly.
/
/
Loki stepped inside a bathroom within the Healing Room and never came out. Not that anyone noticed, anyway. He had removed his fourth ruined tunic and pulled on the black one he wore to sleep in, then replaced the metal arm band he'd removed from his right arm. When he left, he looked like himself again, but no one could see him. The curse did not activate. He understood now, better than ever. It was all about motivation. True intent. Loki still wasn't sure what he intended now, but his immediate goal was no longer the removal of the curses.
He could still try going to one of several elves he knew on Svartalfheim or Alfheim, but the risk was great. That didn't mean he dismissed the idea, but it did mean he couldn't repeat his earlier mistake and go rushing in with nothing but a single-minded goal and ignorance. And arrogance. Just because he didn't wish something to be his concern didn't mean it wasn't. He would need to go in with plans of defense, plans of attack, plans to manipulate, detailed reviews of everything he knew of whichever person he would go to. He would need time to come up with those plans. And somewhere away from here to do it.
He couldn't stay. He couldn't be caught and imprisoned again. He couldn't fight for Asgard or for Odin in this false skin, some additional disguise on top of it. He couldn't fight for the other realms against Asgard only to see Gullveig or Nadrith or who knew who else…Thanos? – Loki shuddered – sitting on the throne. Perhaps he could come in near the end, when everyone was weakened, and reclaim the throne himself then.
The safest place in all the Nine Realms for him, the one realm not involved in this intergalactic war, ironically enough, was the realm he'd been on for the previous two months. He wondered briefly if he'd been forgotten there all this time, if anyone remembered or cared where he was. But like all other thoughts born of sentiment, he pushed it aside.
He made his way out of the Healing Room complex with some difficulty; four times he was bumped into and had to quickly slip past confused warriors who could not find who they'd collided with. He walked back toward the main east-west avenue, then further off of it when the few warriors traversing it on horseback grew into a steady stream, followed by others on foot. Jolgeir then had probably gotten his message out.
Loki reached into his satchel and again pulled out the devices he and Jane had modified, and strapped one to each wrist. Pathfinder had to work now. If it didn't, if Jane had turned it off, if it had somehow simply stopped working, he would have a problem. With all of his traveling between the realms he had lost track of how much time had passed – a day and a half? Two days? There were no other routes to Midgard, he supposed because it was simply too far away, the most distant in the World Tree from Asgard. It wasn't entirely true, actually; there was one that Loki had discovered a few hundred years ago, faint and weak. It had taken years beyond its discovery before Loki was able to get it to actually establish a gateway and take him somewhere. Unfortunately where it had taken him was about five feet above a Midgardian ocean, which he'd promptly fallen into. He'd long since gotten over his fear of water, but this water that stretched for as far as his eyes could see with no sign of land was too much. There was nothing to mark the portal entrance on the Midgardian side, so in something of a panic he'd gotten the gateway to open again as quickly as he could and returned to Asgard dripping with salt water he'd known was of Midgard only because he was later able to identify one of the creatures he'd seen swimming in the water. With Gungnir he could have temporarily re-directed the gateway location on Midgard's side, but the staff was back in Odin's hands now.
If he was going back to Midgard to recuperate and plan, it was going to have to be via Pathfinder.
He took what he hoped would be a last look around him, ready to retrieve the RF switch in his satchel to turn on the transmitter. His eyes fell on the little round wooden building that temporarily housed the tesseract.
He could also use the tesseract for travel. He'd seen and felt it done, he believed he could do it.
But he could use it for so much more. To travel to Vanaheim and hunt down Gullveig, make him suffer. To unlock its mysteries, truly learn its workings – not just what he'd claimed to The Other. To turn its workings on Thanos and his lackey and destroy them piece by piece. To take Asgard. Volstagg wanted him to fight with them? He could fight for and against them, controlling the game behind the scenes until every realm was too exhausted and depleted to continue. He would come as Asgard's salvation. And not just Asgard, he could rule the Nine. Eight anyway. Midgard could rot. Seven. On Jotunheim he would finish what he started. Afterward Yggdrasil would connect the Eight Realms. He ducked into a shadowed corner, brought out his sword, made it invisible.
Pathfinder was ignored.
He made his way carefully to the observatory, making a slow spiral circle around it as he approached. It was heavily guarded. A dozen Einherjar around it, another ten he spotted concealing themselves in the shadow of the nearest building, on a nearby roof, among bushes, behind trees, in tree limbs. He knew all these tactics. He couldn't believe how blind he'd been to not see the one hiding in the tree near the cave that hid the gateway to Svartalfheim. He'd never even bothered to look.
He made up for his earlier tunnel vision with extra caution, pausing to think, to look, after each step. He saw no cause for concern, nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary, with one glaring exception: Heimdall was not present. Heimdall guarded the bifrost, and with the bifrost dead, he guarded Asgard's sole other reliable means of travel among the realms. He didn't hide; the idea was rather comical. Heimdall meant to intimidate, through his physical bearing, his sword, his attire, his penetrating gaze, his deep voice. Loki didn't know how long this war had been going on, how many battles had already been fought – Hogun's injuries didn't look like they'd just happened. Heimdall could have also been injured. There was one door he hadn't checked at the end of the corridor in the private wing of the Healing Room – that room could have held Heimdall.
He could think of no other reason that Heimdall wouldn't be here. He stopped short, having then thought of another. If this was all a diversion, meant to draw out an attack, and the tesseract wasn't kept here anymore, then Heimdall wouldn't be here either; he'd be wherever the tesseract actually was. Loki altered his course to allow him a good look through one of the windows. The structure was guarded precisely as it was when he was sent to Midgard, other than Heimdall's absence. Through the window, he saw the tesseract sitting atop a pedestal, again precisely as it had been when he departed. He tried to test it for any signs of magic that shouldn't be there, signs of an illusion, or a transformation. He didn't find it, but there was protective magic surrounding it, and even that was difficult to pin down, due to the sheer energy the tesseract itself emitted – gamma radiation, this particular energy would be called on Midgard – even when not in use.
A ram's horn sounded twice in the distance, to the west, obviously enchanted because he looked up and could tell exactly where it came from – very near the eastern edge of the Felingard Forest. As his eyes scanned the horizon he noticed a dark gray patch like a low diffuse cloud, standing out against the clear blue late afternoon sky. Fire? he wondered. He didn't know exactly where the source of the cloud was, but it stood to reason it was in the same area. The area where Terek had advised Brokk not to leave him if he wanted him to live.
Loki was curious. But he couldn't go lurking around Asgard forever.
He resumed his spiral toward the observatory entrance, pausing four feet away from it, three feet away from the nearest Einherjar, standing at either side of it. He looked down at his feet, just above the grass – not a blade should be bent underneath him. The Einherjar blinked, shifted on their feet occasionally; one of them kept glancing off to his left, clearly concerned about whatever new attack may be taking place. Loki took another step forward, then another, and another. With each step he watched carefully for any reaction that could signal the Einherjar were aware of his presence. There was none.
With the next step he would commit to this; he would enter the observatory.
Thunder boomed through the sky and Loki took a shuddering breath. There were no clouds. Thunder meant only one thing. Moving nothing but his eyeballs he looked toward the Einherjar directly to his right. His eyes were tracking something through the sky, from east to west. They never lingered in Loki's vicinity. He released his breath and stepped through the open entryway.
The air was warmer inside than out, suffused with magic. He hadn't noticed that before, but he'd been distracted at the time. Still, he was done dismissing things his senses reported to him. He gripped his stolen sword more tightly in his left hand – the right remained too weakened – and examined everything around him for signs of traps or triggers. He could detect none, but there was so much magic in the air, so much energy of different flavors, all mixing and blending and it was difficult to pull them apart into their own unique signatures. He had a bad feeling about this. He didn't ignore it, but he didn't obey it, either. He wanted the tesseract. Badly. He slipped his right hand into his satchel. This time, if something went wrong, he was prepared. He hoped.
He stepped closer to the tesseract. Through the spot where his mother had given him the red globe. He wondered if it had glowed at all in the hours he'd been back on Asgard; he'd never seen it do so since the moment she gave it to him. To the spot where he'd stood and placed his hand over the tesseract, where he'd requested to go to Norway just to taunt Thor. He wondered if Thor had accepted that he was now an only child and forgotten him. If he hadn't yet, Thor would finally leave his fantasies of brotherhood behind for good once he found out where Loki had spent the last two months.
He reached forward with his aching right arm, felt the slight increase in heat of the glowing cube with its swirling blue clouds. It was beautiful, but…
But it wasn't the tesseract.
He knew it in the instant before he heard two notes from a horn. He didn't need any enchantment to tell him where it came from; he turned around and saw it on the lips of the Einherjar standing in the entryway.
The guard let the horn fall, hanging from its leather strap, and advanced. Two more had fallen in behind him and entered. Two more fell in behind them. As they entered they spread into a grid, more and more of them, filling the room and slowly pressing forward. He wouldn't be able to slip through them to get through the entrance, not without taking out a dozen highly-trained Einherjar first. With impaired magic and a minimally-functional right arm.
The game was over. Asgard was over. He slid his hand back into the satchel, felt past the empty wrapper, found the RF switch linked to the transmitter, and again flipped it on.
Nothing happened.
Loki cursed under his breath. The Einherjar couldn't hear it anyway. Except they did.
Loki's eyes widened as soon as theirs did. Every gold-helmeted head was turned his way. He checked himself. He was still invisible, but his sound dampening had become unstable. He reinforced it, then quickly changed his position, edging toward the wall as the Einherjar advanced on him, changing their angle of approach to take his location into account.
He pulled his hand from the satchel and cringed as he forced his right arm high enough to reach for the window opening. His hand met spongy resistance. Loki smiled darkly; he would laugh at the irony of it if there were not twelve swords raised in his direction and coming closer, if there were not shouts outside the structure, also approaching. Brokk had imprisoned him again. Not Brokk directly. That was highly unlikely, and there were no enchanted candles. This was Maeva's work. He'd learned it from Brokk, and taught it to Maeva when they were on good terms, and Maeva had adapted it to her own style. She didn't use candles.
There was no roof, but it would be sealed as well. Still, as always, he would try. Mistakes happened; unexpected weaknesses could be exploited. He propelled himself silently upward, and rather than even attempting to lift his right arm he extended his left, letting the sword probe the opening above him. He got the same, expected, result. He scanned the invisible line of the barrier but could find no indication of any imperfection in it. Maeva was talented – probably the best in Asgard, other than him.
Something bumped his left ankle, and as he looked down and instinctively lowered his sword back into position to strike, a fist shot up, grabbed it, and yanked. Loki brought his sword down toward the outstretched arm, but he was off-balance and managed only a cut across the arm. It was enough to make the hand momentarily loosen; Loki wrenched his ankle away and spun to his right, maintaining his elevation, but away from his boxed-in position by the wall. A sword struck his right calf, and it stung as Loki twisted away from that, too. Another sword moved to cut against his left leg, but he beat it, forcing the sword away but leaving himself open to another attack. He began to push himself higher, to try to get above the swords, to an area where he was freer to maneuver, but another hand found his ankle. The angle was awkward, but Loki leaned down and thrust his sword down through the upper chest of the Einherjar who now had hold of him, then flicked out the fingers of his right hand. A horn was heard from the direction of the palace, and the voices that had grown from a steady murmur to the occasional shout fell silent.
"Mind your own task!" one of them, probably their leader, barked. The half of the guards who'd been distracted and turned refocused their attention on fixing Loki's location and grabbing him or stabbing him.
Loki sliced deeply into the shoulder of the nearest man. He was just wrenching the sword out again when the breath rushed out of him and he realized the guards weren't the only ones who'd been successfully distracted for a moment. He leaned forward again, this time to try to pull himself off of the sword in his back.
The room went unnaturally bright, and his stomach turned. He grimaced, certain he was going to be sick at an incredibly inopportune time.
/
First an answer to a question from jaquelinelittle. "[I]f that apprentice healer can remove Brokk's spell which Loki can't, they could try the same with Odin's curse..."? I kind of took the answer to this for granted in my own head, but it probably won't be made explicit so it deserves an answer as it's key to the plot. The idea is that these are two very different types of magic. Brokk's is not person-specific, and not nearly as strong compared to what Odin applied to Loki, which was very strong and very much person-specific. The more general kind of magic is much more easily removed than the kind that was created For You And You Alone. I hope that makes sense, and thanks for asking! I imagine others may have wondered the same. Perhaps in a subsequent revision I'll add a phrase or two to clarify that.
Second the continued "thank you's" - I do so love to hear from you, love chatting about all these characters. I appreciate each and every reader and reviewer. I-heart-you. ;-) You may not believe me (!) but we're closer to the end than the beginning now...and I wrote the last line of this story a few days ago. Not that it's in the next chapter. There are still many to go. But it just came to me and made me happy. Of course I may change it, who knows! Ha!
As for the next chapter...CHAPTER FIFTY, wow!...no teasers this time, except by request, to avoid spoiler-y-ness. Otherwise you get only this tiny excerpt:
"My queen, we must return to the palace immediately. There's been an attack at the observatory."
Frigga froze for just a second – the observatory, the temporary one, was a stone's throw from here – then nodded and headed for the door.