Beneath
Chapter Fifty-Two – Cruelty
Loki dashed across the ice, slipping a few times but never completely losing his footing, in the boat shoes that were perhaps meant for wearing on boats, but certainly not for outdoors at the South Pole. The summer camp jamesways were close compared to the Dark Sector Lab, but the distance for a time seemed insurmountable as the cold dry air burned his lungs.
By the time he reached the jamesway he and Jane had commandeered, he'd already decided there was no point checking around back first; if she had already made it to Pathfinder, running back there would only waste more time. He threw open the door and swept his gaze across the table; the gadgets he'd left there yesterday were gone. "Where is it? Where is it?" he asked no one…or Jane, really. He'd modified an extra structural integrity field generator, basically out of boredom while waiting for her to finish the circuit board. "What did you do with it?"
He dropped down to look under the table and found a box. He yanked the box out, and right on top, wrapped in a piece of white cloth, was the gadget he needed. There were other electronic parts and other white cloths in the box, but he didn't bother with them; there was no time. He slipped the device over his wrist as he ran back outside and around back; there was no sign of Jane.
Loki skidded to a halt and slipped, bumping into Pathfinder, and pressed the button before he'd fully righted himself and steadied Pathfinder. He pressed the device on his wrist down against Jane's machine and tried to stand still for the longest five seconds of his life.
Five.
She'll be far below me already. The possibility that it could already be too late did not merit consideration.
Four.
He scanned his memories for an appropriate solution.
Three.
He found one, from a time long ago when he'd tried to help Thor in mastering Mjolnir.
Two.
But that hadn't gone well. Loki had been accused of trying to kill him and gone into hiding on Svartalfheim.
One.
Irrelevant. Why is this accursed thing taking so-
/
/
Thor circled the area surrounding the Felingard Forest from above, searching for any embers sparking into flame, or any lingering Fire Giants attempting to ignite something else or flee the area to make a new attempt somewhere away from Mjolnir. There was only one Thor, and the Fire Giants had been widely dispersed and he could not create and sustain thunderstorms everywhere at once, but at least at night it had been easy to spot the initial flames. In the bright midday sunshine, depending on what had been set alight and where, they were difficult to see until they roared out of control.
Still, he saw nothing now. The combined forces of Einherjar and citizen warriors had easily overwhelmed most of the remaining Fire Giants once they became soaked and chilled in the early pre-dawn hours; Muspelheim had sent not warriors this time, but destroyers. Fire-wielders. The Aesir who caught them showed little mercy. Hundreds of Aesir had been sent to the Healing Room with severe burns and lung damage; dozens, including some fifteen Einherjar who failed to escape their camp after it was set ablaze, had burned to death.
After a quick check with the commanders on the ground, Thor headed back to the east. Out of the corner of his eye, to the south, he thought he saw a flash of light. He turned his head in that direction, but nothing was out of place, so he continued on, returning to the site of the battle he'd left yesterday.
What he saw shocked him. The Aesir were lined up behind the stone block wall, the cavalry, winged or otherwise, nowhere in sight. The wall's own defenses were active, lobbing heavy stone projectiles into the field, while Aesir archers perched in turrets and other warriors manned the wall itself against the onslaught. The mass of attackers – Dark Elves and Vanir, Thor could tell only as he drew close – was so dense that from above they appeared as one seething, roiling creature. They numbered in the thousands.
A glint of metal somehow reflecting more of the sun's rays than anything around it caught Thor's eye; when he looked down he realized his father, standing at the head of a small cluster of warriors that included his friends, was signaling him. They parted for Thor to drop to the ground among them.
"Asgard is secure to the west?" Odin asked, before Thor's feet even met the earth.
"Yes, Father." A fuller report could wait. Odin had never been one for unnecessarily long-winded explanation or conversation.
He nodded at Volstagg, who began to fill Thor in. "We had to fall back. They opened a second portal just as we thought we'd put them to rout and they soon outnumbered us greatly. We have reinforcements now, but we're holding position, weakening them as much as we can. Then we'll permit a controlled breach," he said, pointing at the wall with a heavily bandaged right hand.
Thor listened as the plan was laid out; the idea was to let the enemy think they'd overwhelmed the defenders, then drive them into a trap and crush the rest. The plan was not without risk; were too many of them to escape, and turn to Asgard's buildings, or supplies, or the injured, or the general citizenry, instead of her fighting warriors, it would be difficult to contain them. Odin had planned on preparing the trap himself, but with Thor's arrival, plans changed. A spot was chosen and cleared, and Thor pounded Mjolnir into the ground once, twice, again and again, until a mammoth pit was formed over compacted dirt. It was not so glorious as greeting each one of the enemy with a raised weapon or bare fist, but even this pit would hold only perhaps half of the attackers. Plenty would remain to fight the proper way.
When he launched himself out of the pit with Mjolnir and back beside his father, Odin clasped his arm, and through his exhaustion and the sweat dripping from his forehead he felt a familiar rush, the thrill of another battle to come. He remembered standing on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by the enemy, his father on his right, his brother on his left, his friends arrayed about them. "Father, we'll finish them together!" He'd longed for it so badly he could taste it, berserker bloodlust returning the absolute self-confidence that had faltered moments earlier. He'd meant every word of it, those words Loki had thrown back in his face while in SHIELD custody. He had wanted to destroy them all in that moment, and doing it alongside his father would have only made the conquest sweeter.
How things had changed.
He still couldn't fully conceive of it, that Loki was one of them. Because he wasn't. Loki was his brother. Troubled. Flawed. Cruel, his mind whispered. But still his brother.
Odin squeezed his arm tighter, and Thor's eyes regained focus and met his. He squeezed back. He still wanted it, to fight alongside his father, even just to see his father truly fight. He'd wanted it all his life. In his fantasies, though, he'd seen only enemy after enemy, most often Frost Giants, felled by Gungnir and Mjolnir. He'd never pictured Aesir carrying the bodies of fellow Aesir from the battleground around him.
Thor ran to the wall to join the others, sending Mjolnir flying from his hand to decimate a group of warriors pressing toward the stone barricade.
/
/
Jane screamed, but only once. Despite what repeated encounters with Loki might make of her, she really wasn't a screamer. The scream ended quickly, when she realized if she didn't close her mouth immediately she was going to be retching up bile from her empty stomach. Jaw clamped closed, she then realized she was falling – really falling. Fast. She managed to look down. Bad idea. There had to be a bottom down there somewhere…but she couldn't see it. Only water and stone and sky, and darkness below. Eyes clamped closed, she tucked her arms and legs in and clenched every muscle in her body in some sort of primal instinct that she knew wasn't going to protect her, in that part of her mind that somehow always remained detached and analytical.
Suddenly she remembered where she was, supposedly.
"Thor!" she screamed until the breath left her lungs.
/
/
Loki was prepared this time. As soon as he felt gravity his eyes strained downward, while holding himself still to keep his fall controlled. There she was, so far beneath him, so tiny, that he might not have seen her at all were it not for the bright red jacket she wore. Manipulating the pressure of the air around him to create a slight but steady vacuum that would increase his rate of descent, he retrieved the net he'd made long ago, materializing it not between his hands as he usually did, but below Jane…he hoped.
A second later the red dot disappeared in a cloud of dust.
/
/
Jane's entire body jerked as she collided with something and bounced up once, her neck whipping painfully back. Her breath rushed out in a whoosh and her first thought was that she'd finally hit the ground and this moment marked her death. Then she sucked in lungfuls of air, or rather tried to, and was lost to racking coughs. With each wheezing inhale and hacking exhale, it sunk in further that she was not in fact dead, and her body was not broken.
She opened her eyes, then wiped with her gloves at them – they were just bulky enough to do no good and in fact make things worse. With her eyes tearing up rapidly, cycling between closed and barely open, she pulled the glove and liner from her right hand, stuffed them in a pocket, and rubbed her eyes, the tears helping to clear away the grit. She was on her back, knees bent and collapsed over to the left, and when she finally was able to see again she realized she was covered in a layer of dark gray dust. Right underneath her, she saw, was rope. Lots of rope, numerous lengths of it, knotted into a mesh: a net.
Her eyes then focused beyond her own body and she saw a sheer rock face in front of her and suddenly she processed motion again. Upward motion. She gave another cough as her eyes darted wildly around her, searching for what was holding the net she was lying on. Vertigo hit her again when she realized nothing was holding up the net. Her right hand clenched down hard on a section of rope, while her gloved left instinctively fumbled to do the same and could not. She looked up and gaped, then felt herself growing light-headed, and for a second Jane was certain she was going to pass out.
Loki was hovering in the air some fifteen or twenty feet above, looking down at her with an outstretched hand.
/
/
Jane had almost reached him when Loki realized both of them were perfectly visible, if not to Heimdall's particular brand of extra sight, then to every regular functioning eye.
He thought then immediately of Jolgeir, and of his own experience with blindness, brief but terrifying. "Loki, can you see me?" he could still remember his mother asking, finally making him realize the darkness wasn't some grand hoax Thor was playing on him.
He made first himself then Jane invisible, taking care not to loosen his control over the steadily rising net; it required more effort than it should have. When Jane had risen to his height he lifted them both back up to the level of the bridge and set her down on it, far enough from the end that she wouldn't startle and fall right back off again. She sat up a little straighter. He sent the net away and her fingers scrambled in vain to find purchase on the flawlessly smooth surface beneath her. She then finally looked down from what had been almost a vacant stare to see what her hand touched. Her expression changed almost instantaneously.
"This…this is it. This is the Rainbow Bridge. The bifrost. This is the bridge," she said, her brain happily fixating on something other than what had just happened. She had imagined it so many times. She could make out dark streaks of color in it, but she'd expected it to be brighter.
"Yes, well, currently it's no more than an extraordinarily long sidewalk to nowhere," Loki said drily, teetering between anger and relief.
Jane looked up; she'd managed to forget Loki was there for a few seconds. This was not how she'd imagined this going. Not that she'd spent that much time imagining it. She'd pretty much just decided to do it. And she hadn't told Loki because she didn't want to give him the chance to stop her or to follow her. "What are you doing here?" she asked, dazed and irritated.
"Oh, I don't know Jane," – he glanced pointedly at the end of the bifrost – "saving you from certain death, perhaps?"
Jane closed her eyes for a moment, but as soon as she did she could feel herself falling again – her eyes snapped open and she pressed her bare right palm harder against the cool surface of the bridge. "What was that? That you caught me with?" she asked quietly.
"A net. Here, get up," he said, holding out a hand. He wasn't terribly interested in having this pedantic conversation anyway, but especially not while she sat on the bridge at his feet like a child.
"I know it was a net. I mean…with all the dust," she answered as she reluctantly held up her right hand for him to help her up. "Did you just make it? Out of dust?" She was unsteady on her feet, and Loki's hand went to her arm, long fingers wrapping around Big Red. Jane saw it but felt removed from it.
"Of course not. I made it out of rope, which I purchased at a market. It's simply dusty because it hasn't been used in a few centuries."
"Centuries? You caught me with a centuries-old net?" In her mind's eye she saw herself hitting that net, worn ancient ropes snapping, and her falling right through. She looked down at her hands, at the solid bridge beneath her feet, and suddenly for no identifiable reason the most important thing in the world was to have her left hand as free of the gloves as her right; the glove and liner went into a pocket as Loki spoke.
"No, I said I last used it centuries ago. I made it…almost exactly a thousand years ago."
"You caught me with a thousand-year-old net. That you made. A thousand years ago."
Loki shook his head. Hasn't it been five minutes yet? He stepped closer to Jane, not wanting himself to get severed in half like the sword he'd been impaled on. He hadn't taken the time to find a second transmitter; his return trip depended on Jane's. "Things that are made here last. And that net was made to handle…much more weight than you."
Crack! Mjolnir slammed upward into his body, breaking his collarbone, the edge of it catching his chin and driving his head sharply backward; were he still a youth it might have snapped his neck. He stumbled backward and tried to spin away when he the saw the hammer swinging toward him again, but still it caught his left shoulder and he could feel something break there, too. Still weak and underweight from his long sentence, he lost his footing completely and fell to the ground face first, crying out when he instinctively tried to break his fall and his left arm gave out underneath him. He tried to push himself up and was sickened by the grinding sound coming from his collarbone. He felt a strong jerk at his collar, and found himself suddenly on his back. Mjolnir was on the ground next to him; Thor's fist was closing in fast on his face. He tried to block the blow, but Thor's arms were tree trunks next to his atrophied twigs. The strikes came one after another, five, six, seven – Loki lost count. When at last a reprieve came, he opened his eyes, one of them at least, the other refused to obey. Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral were straining to hold Thor back, and Sif was standing next to Loki, leaning in to put herself between the two brothers, shouting something Loki could only pick out a few words of over his ringing ears. A minute or so passed, and his hearing quickly improved.
"-killed him, Thor!" Sif was shrieking.
"He tried to kill me," Thor said, his voice low, menacing.
He wrenched his arm free of Volstagg's grip, young Sif jumped back in fear, and Thor landed a blow to Loki's stomach that had him coughing up blood and struggling not to be sick. He raised himself up into a partial sitting position on his right arm and tried to push himself back, beyond his brother's reach. In the meantime Thor's friends were shouting over each other and increasing their efforts to hold him back.
"Stop it, Thor, he's your brother," Loki could just make out Fandral shouting over the others.
Thor's face trembled with a rage and a hatred Loki had never seen before. "So was Baldur," he said, before breaking free for another stone fist to Loki's cheekbone.
Thor had never reached the net. He'd never even seen it. He'd only known that Loki had tricked him into letting go of Mjolnir while high above a deep rocky gorge. And then Thor's true feelings had come out. Time passed. Thor apologized. Loki forgave. Hadn't it always gone like that?
He looked down at Jane, who hadn't moved away from him at all, which was surprising, although she had turned her head toward the city. He wrinkled his nose at her hair, full of dust so thick it looked like a mass of cobwebs. "Why haven't we been brought back yet?" he asked. When Jane did not react, he repeated his question.
"Things that are made here last." When Loki had said that, Jane had failed to process anything but the word "here." Because it finally got fully through her rattled head that "here" was no longer the South Pole. It was no longer Earth. It was no longer Earth's solar system, maybe not even the Milky Way. Asgard. Her gaze was drawn along the bridge to a massive golden gate several stories tall, and beyond, to a city in the distance in gleaming gold and silver with slightly pink hues from the day's first sunlight breaking over the horizon. It was so fantastic she simply stared, overwhelmed.
"Jane."
"What?" she asked, turning her head back, then jumping a bit, disoriented and surprised by how close Loki was.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Noth- Nothing. I'm just…nothing," she repeated. It wasn't true, not really. Her heart was still racing and she knew the strange detachment that she felt from everything around her was abnormal. Shock, she thought. But she also knew it would pass and she would be fine.
"All right. Then what's wrong with Pathfinder?"
"Pathfinder?"
"It's been more than five minutes."
"Five… Oh. I turned off the signal from the transmitter before I even left." That she'd had the sense to plan for – the complete awe of seeing Asgard for the first time, and the likelihood that it would cause her to forget to flip the RF switch.
Loki frowned, let go of her arm, and stepped back from her; she started to stagger a bit and he grudgingly took hold of her again. "Give it to me."
"The switch? No. I came here to see Thor, and I'm not leaving until I do." And whatever exactly the shock was doing to her, Jane was pretty happy with, because her bravado was entirely lacking in the fear she knew she would have otherwise felt to defy him that overtly with his hand wrapped around her arm.
"You can't even stand up on your own. You aren't going anywhere. Give me the switch."
"If you don't let me go, I'll yell for him."
"Yell for whomever you like, as loudly as you like. No one can see or hear you." He craned his neck back as Jane opened her mouth and formed the beginning of Thor's name.
Jane stopped before she got the name out. She'd come here because Thor was hurt. Badly, she presumed, if he hadn't been able to just magically treat whatever his injury was. Snap out of it! she ordered herself. Then she smiled, because it worked. She looked up at Loki and took a deep breath. "Heimdall!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.
Loki winced and pulled away; this time Jane managed to keep her balance without his support. "Heimdall can't here you either, Jane. But I promise you I can. Now, are there any other names you'd like to scream in my ear, or can we go?"
"I told you, I'm not going until I see Thor." Jane turned and began walking down the bridge, in a place that, whatever exactly it was, it was definitely not Earth. She couldn't yet quite fathom it, so she simply put one foot in front of the other.
Loki stood in place, watched her, and sighed. He could pin her down, find the switch in whatever pocket she'd hidden it in, wrest it from her, and take them back to Midgard. But if he did that he risked breaking it and stranding them here. He watched, unconcerned, as she put more distance between them. She could probably walk for half an hour before she reached the first street that met the bridge.
He thought about where she was headed. He was fairly confident she knew next to nothing of the layout of the city. Perhaps she realized if she continued straight she would reach the palace. But she would find nothing there. At least, she would not find Thor there. What would he find there, if he could make it inside unseen? Knowledge. What had happened to the west, in the Felingard Forest? What had happened to the east? Did the fighting still rage? Who was winning? Why had Vigdis sold out her own people? Had his information helped? Little time had passed, less than a full day, but it was enough that new information should be available.
His gaze focused on Jane again. She was unzipping Big Red as she walked; she'd been sweating earlier. He took a deep breath. Time to try truth again.
He easily caught up to her with his long gait. "Jane, stop."
"No."
"Listen to me. I told you he was injured. That was the truth. But I only said it because I was angry. He's fine now."
"Right," Jane said, never breaking stride.
"Jane. I'm telling you the truth. There was an explosion in the palace, but he's fully recovered."
"I'll just confirm that for myself, thank you." She didn't believe a word of it.
"Did you leave your head behind on Midgard? Asgard is at war. Where do you think he is? Reclining in the garden laughing at the squirrels and snacking on Pop-Tarts? You can't see him, Jane. You'd be dead before you got there."
She finally stopped and turned to look at him, her brain back to lagging behind what was going on around her. Isolated images flashed through her mind – Thor eating Pop-Tarts in some Disney fairy tale garden setting. Thor in all his armor, stirring up a small tornado, sweeping up both giants and elves. Her with a sword in her back. A flash of lightning cutting through the distant blue sky. She blinked. That one was real. Another jagged bolt followed it.
"Yes," Loki said, watching her and realizing she'd seen that, "that was him. Congratulations, you've had your little trip to Asgard. But you aren't safe here. Now give me the switch." He held out his hand.
Jane wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and breathed deeply – the air was thick and rich and plentiful here, she realized, and now that her legs had steadied she felt she could walk for miles and miles without tiring. But she could not walk into the war zone Thor was in, apparently restored to good health. And Thor certainly wouldn't want her to. She'd done it, though. She'd made it to Asgard, with a push of a button she'd installed on a piece of equipment SHIELD had helped build and Young-Soo's new lens filter had improved. Jane couldn't wait to see the expression on his face when she told him how she'd used it. What a reference she'd make now! She not only knew people from Asgard, she'd been to Asgard. And she would tell him. She didn't care what SHIELD said. She'd been to Asgard. For fifteen minutes. She sighed, unzipped the side right pocket of her jacket, pulled out the RF switch, and handed it to Loki.
"Good," he said, dopping it into his satchel, then took the transmitter from her right wrist and slipped it over his own. "Now come up here."
Jane looked up at him with curiosity and a certain amount of skepticism, but she figured he'd done this before and she hadn't. She followed him toward the giant gold gate with its open double doors in the center, the entire structure towering above them.
"Sit," Loki said, once they'd reached the observatory side of the open gate.
"Why?" she asked, the skepticism growing.
"Must you question everything I say?"
Jane bit back a retort and got down first to her knees, then her rear, bending her knees and crossing her ankles. Maybe the trip was easier if you went while sitting. But the structural field generator had been designed to accommodate someone standing, specifically Loki. Before she could voice an objection he was speaking again.
"See this knob?" He crouched down in front of her and pointed; she nodded. It was purely decorative, a raised disc, symbolic of the power and unity of Asgard's royal family, worn by Odin and Thor, once worn by Loki himself, when he'd still thought himself a member of that family. Several of them adorned the gate; this one was a little lower than her shoulder height, in her seated position. "Press your palm against it, and hold your other hand nearby."
Jane narrowed her eyes at him. This was starting to remind her of her late Uncle Jim with his "pull my finger" jokes that he somehow thought were hysterical even long after Jane knew what was coming and only pulled his finger to humor him because he was old and sick. She hesitated just long enough to make sure he knew what she thought of this, but then extended her right arm and put her palm over the circle.
Loki placed his hand close to Jane's and drew his thumb and fingers together. A thin metal band stretched out from the disc, encircling Jane's wrist loosely enough not to pinch, tightly enough not to allow her hand to slip through. In one continuous motion he drew his hands out further and formed a similar band over her left wrist just below the elastic of the structural integrity field generator, connected to the right with a thin but unbreakable chain. He nodded and stood.
Jane couldn't feel what he'd done until he moved his own hands away, and when he did, her eyes went wide and she immediately began tugging at her right hand. "What are you doing? Why did you do that?" she asked frantically, in complete disbelief. She got back onto her knees and began pulling at the metal band with her left hand.
"I have something I need to do, and I don't need you getting in the way. Stop pulling at that. You won't be able to get free. You'll only hurt yourself. Just sit here, relax, and I'll return for you when I'm done."
"Wait!" she called as he turned to walk away and leave her there alone, handcuffed to the gate. "You said it isn't safe. How can you just leave? What if they start fighting here? What if those…Frost Giants or Svartalfheim people come?"
Loki stiffened. "You're used to the cold. You're even dressed for it. You'll be fine."
"Loki, I'm serious, don't do this!" She felt a panic coming over her, remembering how he'd looked when he first came back from Asgard, covered in blood spatter and stab wounds.
"There's nothing to fight for here, all right, Jane? Nothing of strategic value. Nothing of tactical value. Look around you. If you were going to stage a battle, would you do so here, where there's little room to maneuver? No one can see or hear you, so no one will come for you, either. You're in quite possibly the one place in all of Asgard guaranteed to see no fighting. The bridge is useless. Dead, devoid of energy. It didn't look like this before, when it was something worth capturing," he said, lifting his left foot and pressing it down again onto the bridge, which didn't react. "It…" It used to be beautiful. He hadn't thought of it that way in a very long time, for he'd long since come to take it for granted, but it was true. The thought made him unexpectedly sad, even mournful, and he took a quick breath to shake it off. These reflections were not helpful for him, and he owed Jane no explanations. He simply did not wish to see her damage herself in a futile attempt to wrest her hand free.
"Calm yourself. Nothing will happen to you. I swear I'll be back for you," Loki said, then grit his teeth and walked away. She called once more for him and he ignored it. And there was no denying it; he felt guilty. Of course she was frightened, alone and trapped in a foreign realm. Like what Brokk had done to him in Svartalfheim. He straightened his shoulders and held his head high. Not like Brokk. I am not Brokk. Brokk had trapped him to deposit him on Asgard, to be sent to Jotunheim. He meant no harm to Jane, and had secured her to the gate as much for her own safety as for his convenience, or almost so.
His thoughts continued to lead him down troubling paths as he walked quickly toward the palace. Brokk wants power, but he doesn't want to rule. He wants it for his own amusement, for his entertainment, for his experiments in expanding his personal abilities. He could have been describing himself, before he'd discovered the allure of that particular brand of power that came with ruling. But I was never so cruel. He almost stumbled in his steps as memories flashed through his mind, one after another, ending on a terrified man with an eyeball he needed. No, he thought squeezing his eyes shut briefly as though he were physically seeing instead of simply remembering. He rejected them all, every last one. The mortals were irrelevant. Anyone who'd harmed him, who'd tried, or who'd stood in his way – irrelevant. And the Frost Giants had deserved what they'd gotten and more. He was not Brokk.
What am I then? Loki of Asgard, came the answer, the only answer he'd had since that harrowing revelation in the Weapons Vault. But who is that? He was not Aesir, the Frost Giants sickened him, he'd failed to rule the mortals, all the Nine sought his capture. He had no home of his own, no name of his own, he had nothing. You are nothing, a voice inside him whispered. He suddenly found himself burning with so much hatred for Jane that his hands trembled, the kind of hatred he'd previously reserved for Odin, for condemning him to this first ignorant, wasted millennium of his life. Jane had no right to put such thoughts in his head. To make such accusations. To make him question himself. I should leave her there to rot.
A chill passed over him the second the thought flared up in his mind. He paused and turned back; there was no sign of Jane, restrained and hidden behind the gate, as expected. The guilt came again, stronger this time. He forced himself to resume his progress toward the palace. He would keep his word. Even if he needed to activate his transmitter and make an emergency escape back to Midgard, he would return for her. It wasn't as though it would take much additional effort on his part.
When he reached the foot of the broad onyx stairs that led up to the public entrance to the throne room he hesitated. Just four Einherjar stood watch along the landing at the top of the stairs, twice the usual number but still a flimsy security force if that were the only form of security. Clearly, it was not. Mindful of traps, and without the presence of the tesseract to override his better judgement, he climbed the stairs, passing damaged areas filled with gray stone – from the explosion no doubt – and paused at the top. There was no ruse here. Anyone with an ounce of magical ability would be able to feel the hum of layer upon layer of powerful magic sealing off this so-called public entrance.
The private entrances would be no more accessible. And if he made it past an outer entrance, there would surely be inner layers to these safeguards as well. There would be if he had done it. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. For wouldn't this have been his role? Who better to do it? Old Mordi had died, and his daughter Maeva had taken his place, but Loki was at least as powerful as her. She was sly, as evidenced by the trap she'd laid at the wooden observatory, a trait she'd probably learned from him. He knew her, had once known her very well, and he knew her magic. With sufficient time and effort, he and he alone could probably find a way through the complex barriers she created. But not without significant risk, too much risk for him to take at this point, when he was not in peak condition and the gain was uncertain.
Loki turned away and retraced his silent steps down to the street. It was ironic, really. Strange. The one thing he was better at than Thor, the one thing on which he could have staked his position, proven his worth, and he'd been usurped even in this role, utterly replaced by Maeva, who'd never before had any particular status within the palace itself. Even were he to throw himself at the All-Father's feet, beg the king's mercy, proclaim his remorse, sink to his knees in eternal penitence and obeisance, return to this family as its servant, its war bounty…it would make no difference. Every aspect of his existence here had been rendered useless. Meaningless.
There was one place left he could go. One place he was owed something.
/
/
Loki entered this time without disguise, simply remaining invisible. He shuddered at the shouts of pain coming from behind one closed door as he slipped through the curved main corridor of the Healing Room. By the time an Aesir boy was settled into adulthood he'd been injured so many times in training there was little that could make him carry on so.
Closed doors were his only real challenge now. Luckily there were only three between him and his destination. The first and second, into the vestibule leading to the private wing and into the private wing itself, had glass panels. The vestibule was empty as it had been before, so he pushed the door open and went inside. The corridor beyond, however, was not – two Einherjar stood outside one of the doors on the right. Their presence made him question his plan, but whoever they guarded it was not Jolgeir, whose room was on the left, further down. He tried not to dwell on who it might be.
He waited, and a few minutes later a healer came into the waiting area from the private wing; no one seemed to notice that the door closed more slowly than normal behind her. Eyeing them closely the whole time, Loki made his way down the hallway until he reached Jolgeir's door. The room doors were each set into shallow alcoves, and if he were careful to open it only as much as necessary, it should not be visible to the Einherjar – the ones in the corridor, or the one lying on the bed inside.
"-able to help. But the problem is, we won't really know what needs to be done until we get you home," a woman with shoulder-length brown hair in a light blue gown was saying, standing beside the bed, as Loki crept in, letting the door close soundlessly behind him. A similar-looking girl of about ten years in boyish dark blue with brown leather sat beside Jolgeir, her head resting against his chest, now clothed in a simple white tunic with sleeves cut off. "Last night I tried to pretend I didn't have arms, and I kept forgetting and using them anyway, for all sorts of things."
"We'll figure it out, Sibba. Don't worry about it for now. They want to keep me here for a while anyway. The healers don't have time for home visits."
The girl said something then, but Loki let his mind drift. He'd never had much patience for children, not for a very long time, anyway. Too needy. Too emotional. He waited on the other side of Jolgeir's bed, near the corner, frustrated that he'd had the bad luck to arrive while what were clearly Jolgeir's wife and daughter were here, possibly remaining for hours, even all day.
But only a few minutes later, Jolgeir was sitting up straighter and nudging the girl forward. "I'm feeling tired, Love, why don't you take Dagny and go on home?"
"We can stay, Father. My classes are still cancelled. I don't mind waiting while you sleep. I can be quiet."
"I know you can, Cricket. But I'd feel better about your safety if you went home."
"Twenty homes burned to the ground yesterday. No one is-"
"Sibba."
The woman sighed. "You're right," she said, lifting the girl into her arms. "We'll come back at midday, though. We'll bring you some real food, not the slop they give you here."
Jolgeir laughed quietly and shook his head, then kissed his wife and daughter as they both hugged him in turn. The wife helped the girl down, they said their goodbyes, and they left.
"I do the same, you know?" Jolgeir said once they were gone, startling Loki. "Forget the arms aren't there? All the time. Especially when I want to put my arms around them."
"Your vision has improved markedly, Jolgeir. I'm invisible at the moment," Loki said, moving closer until he stood right next to the bed
"My vision is unchanged. The bottom hinge on the door needs to be oiled."
Loki glanced at the door. He hadn't noticed, and he'd been careful. Always something. "You know who I am, then?"
"Of course I know who you are. I've known you since your Welcoming."
The Welcoming ceremony was a baby's presentation at one month old to those outside the immediate family; in the royal family's case the presentation was to the entire realm. Loki remembered attending Baldur's and being bored out of his mind. "They held one for me?"
Jolgeir wrinkled his brow. "Yes. Of course they did. For Prince Thor as well. I remember-"
"Do you know what I am?"
"I…I don't understand."
"What I was born."
"You were born…a prince. The day the truce was declared ending the Ice War. A symbol of peace. A better future. I don't know what you want me to say."
"A symbol of peace." Loki hadn't thought of that since learning the truth, that he shared his birthday with the end of the Ice War. Of course, who knew when he was really born. That "symbol of peace" drivel was probably made up by Odin as part of his scheme for Loki to somehow unite the realms. He'd heard it all the time when he was younger. So much for that. His birth marked the end of the Ice War, then he'd restarted it when his brainless not-brother couldn't ignore an insult, and then when everything changed, with all his might he'd wanted to end it again, permanently and irrevocably.
The chance would present itself again. Loki could wait. In the meantime, he was glad to learn that Jolgeir seemed not to know the truth. "How do the battles go? There are two simultaneously?"
Jolgeir answered, but only after a pause that set Loki on edge. "They continue. Thank you for the information you provided yesterday. It saved lives, and limited the spread of the fires. Do you have anything further to tell me?"
Loki narrowed his eyes. "I didn't come here to give you information. I came here to obtain it."
"Then you've come to the wrong place. I have no position any longer. They don't keep me informed."
"Where do they hold their meetings?"
The pause was longer this time; Jolgeir blinked rapidly. "I don't know. They used to hold them in the throne room, because it was thought secure. What is your purpose here, Lo-"
"Purpose? I told you. To obtain information." Loki was beginning to lose patience. He'd helped Jolgeir, why was Jolgeir finding it such a challenge to return the favor?
"What are you involved in?"
Loki stared at him.
"You can tell me. I'll help you, I swear it. Your family will help. We can get you out of this, whatever it is. Come home, Loki. I meant what I said yesterday. Asgard needs both its princes now."
His breath hitched as comprehension dawned. They thought he was behind all of this. Jolgeir thought he was behind all of this. Involved, at least. I helped them. Told them where the next attack would be. Gave them the name of a traitor. And I'm repaid with suspicion. Jolgeir didn't trust him. He'd said he did, yesterday, but he'd lied. No one trusted him. Even if they didn't know what he was. "Come home, Loki." Jolgeir was staring back at him blind and stupid – just as blind and stupid as Thor. Both ready to accept him back, if he were willing to be tamed, to be reclaimed as the puppet he'd once been. His bridges here were burned; there was no going back. There was nothing here for him and there never would be. He would never come back as a puppet, and no one here would ever accept him as their king. He would have to rule with an iron fist and mete out terror to hold even his own Einherjar in line.
He pictured Asgard burning. Those homes…twenty homes…Jolgeir's wife had said something about, burned to the ground. He pictured himself standing among the flames. Setting the fires. Burning Asgard. Burning her people. There was a dark allure in it, so dark it unsettled even him. But what then? What would follow? When all of Asgard had burned and there were no more Asgardians left, no more Aesir left, to hate him, to fear him, to distrust him, to see beneath his skin, to rebel against him and threaten to exile him to Jotunheim… He would be alone, with nothing to do but nurse his own hatred. He would rebuild the bifrost, if it took another millennium. He would destroy all the other realms, one by one. He would destroy Thanos. He would destroy the cosmos. He would rule everything and nothing. He would go mad. He would be alone.
"What happened to you, Loki?" Jolgeir's voice was strained.
Loki looked down. In his left hand he held a knife to Jolgeir's neck; a thin line of blood trickled down and stained his white tunic. He'd created it last night from the severed sword blade Jane pulled from his back. He didn't remember taking it from the pouch he'd made for it and attached to the waistband of his pants. "I should take it as a compliment, I suppose. Such faith in my abilities you have. I am skilled at working from the shadows. I learned that from you, much of it. How much of the credit for all this do you think you deserve, then, Jolgeir, hmm?"
"This isn't you."
"You don't know me. No one does." Odin does. Thor, perhaps. If he could get past his foolish sentiment. Loki glanced at the black satchel hanging under his arm. He hadn't emptied it. One package of Pop-Tarts remained inside it. He could leave it on the table on the other side of Jolgeir's bed. Thor would get the message, even through his dense skull. I kept my word. I've been with your woman. He wondered if it would finally send him into a mad enough rage to truly want to kill him. Maybe this was his fate all along, he thought with a twisted snicker. After all, Thor wanted to "finish them all," didn't he? He was one of them, therefore Thor wanted to finish him. He just hadn't been able to accept it yet, clinging as he did to childhood memories. He slipped his right hand into the bag. Thor was so easy to manipulate; he could drive him to it, beginning with this. Drive him to one final confrontation that only one of them would walk away from.
"I do know you," Jolgeir was saying, and perhaps he'd said something else that had gone unheard, but Loki was through listening. The muscles in his shoulder were working; Loki wondered what his mind was telling him to do with his missing arms – probably fight him off. It was a heady kind of power, this, a life in his hands. Jolgeir was defenseless. He could jerk his body, he could kick, he could try to bite, but any such motion would send the knife into his neck. Loki pulled out the silver-packaged message.
"The door."
The words penetrated slowly; the door was already opening by the time Loki realized what Jolgeir had just said.
/
Only partial teasers this go-round: Jolgeir gets another visitor and Loki gets some more disturbing news in what's turning out to be a really bad day for both him and Jane; Jane fears she's been abandoned; Odin has sobering words for Thor.
And excerpt:
Jane sat baking on the bifrost. Extreme Cold Weather gear was meant for…extreme cold weather. Not sunny afternoons where the temperature was probably around 70. She wasn't used to such heat anymore, and would have been baking even without being dressed for -100, she thought. She felt like she was swimming in her own sweat, and was grateful at least that she'd braved the short period outside between the jamesway entrance and Pathfinder without her balaclava or hat. Saved by a moment of vanity. It seemed silly and childish now, but she hadn't wanted Thor to see her like that, so completely covered up that she was unrecognizable. And in the half second's thought she'd given to it, she'd further justified it with the idea that with her face covered up like a bank robber, if she encountered some random Asgardian before she managed to get all that stuff off, they might shoot first and ask questions later. Or stab first, as the case may be.
Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!