The Gospel of Loki

by Joanne M Harris

  No, it wasn’t guilt I felt. But the joy had gone out of everything. The ball of barbed wire in my heart had grown to monstrous proportions. Food had no taste; sleep brought no rest; wine just made my head hurt. The threat of Mimir’s prophecy hung over me like an anvil; I couldn’t talk to anyone; I felt terribly alone.

  It didn’t help that Sigyn was cloyingly sympathetic.

  ‘Poor angel, you look terrible,’ she said, on seeing me looking less than fragrant after another sleepless night. ‘What have you been doing to yourself? Come over, and I’ll fix you something nice for dinner. The boys would love to see you . . .’ And so on, and so forth.

  My sons had become increasingly wild since Fenny’s disappearance. Now they barely spoke to me, or to their mother, but spent their days lounging on the battlements of Asgard, throwing stones down onto the plain and jeering at Sól in her chariot as she raced across the sky.

  As for the gods – since Balder’s death my colleagues had been less than warm. Some of this was Frigg’s doing; the Enchantress, although she had no evidence to support her belief that I was to blame for what had occurred, had nevertheless somehow managed to convey her suspicions to everyone else, with the result that no one (with the exception of Sigyn, of course) wanted to be seen with me.

  All their grudges and grievances were brought out for an airing; Sif, the fact that I’d cut off her hair; Bragi, the kidnap of Idun; Freyja, that whole business with the sons of Ivaldi and the gold necklace; Thor, all the times I’d mocked him. No one remembered all the times I’d saved them from the enemy. The court of public opinion had judged and condemned me all in one. No one talked to me any more. No one even looked at me.

  That hurt my feelings – no, don’t laugh – even though I was guilty. They didn’t know I was guilty; they just assumed it had to be me. As if I was the only one ever to have done bad things. As if I was dirt. It made me angry to think of it and, one hot night, when I’d had a few drinks alone in my dingy little rooms, I heard the sound of music coming from Aegir’s under-sea hall down the way. It sounded like a party and so I went to investigate.

  I found all the gods assembled. Aesir and Vanir; boys and girls; Aegir and Ran, his glaucous wife; even the Old Man himself was there, drinking from a horn of mead and looking almost mellow.

  Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest move to try and gatecrash the party. But I’d been through some difficult times; the insomnia, Sigyn’s persistence, my visit to Hel, the prophecy – not to mention Balder’s death, that of his wife and the brutal killing of Hoder. Try to sympathize when I say I went a little crazy.

  I opened the door into Aegir’s hall and addressed the merry gathering:

  ‘What, celebrating without me? Come on, Odin, let’s have a drink.’

  Bragi, who had been playing his lute, said: ‘I think you’ve already had a few. A few too many, if you ask me.’

  ‘But I don’t ask you,’ I said. ‘I’m asking my brother Odin. Odin, who swore a blood oath that he would never pour himself a drink without making certain that I had one, too. Still, promises are like piecrust, eh? Always made to be broken. And speaking of pies . . .’ I helped myself to a slice of something from someone’s plate. ‘Not bad,’ I said, with my mouth full. ‘Maybe a little greasy.’

  Odin gave me his impassive stare. ‘Come in, Loki. You’re welcome.’

  ‘Welcome? I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Face it, I’m as welcome here as a turd in a hot tub. Which is fine, because I hate you all. Especially you,’ I addressed Bragi, ‘because, apart from having the bad taste to hold a party without me, you’re a terrible poet, a worse instrumentalist, and you couldn’t sing in tune if the Worlds depended on it.’

  Bragi looked as if he were ready to hit me with the lute. I told him to go ahead, it would probably do less harm to me than if he tried to play it. And then I turned on the others, who were watching me, open-mouthed, probably wondering what in Hel had happened to the silver-tongued Trickster they thought they knew.

  Idun tried to take my hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I started to laugh. ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘How very sweet of you to ask. Sweet or stupid, anyway. With you, there’s not much of a difference.’

  Now Freyja stepped forward. ‘Stop it!’ she said. ‘You’re being offensive. Thor, can’t you stop him?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Get somebody else to intervene. Preferably someone who’s dumb enough not to realize you’re using them. Thor’s a pretty good choice – I mean, he can obey simple instructions, as long as you feed him properly . . .’ At this point Thor gave a low growl, and I took the opportunity to deposit the piece of half-eaten pie onto the platter in front of him. ‘Or maybe you should ask Odin? That is, if he can somehow forget that you sold yourself to the Maggots, and all for the price of a necklace – oh, shouldn’t I have mentioned that?’ I bared my teeth in a savage grin. ‘It’s the Chaos in my blood. It sometimes drives me to misbehave. You’d know all about that, Freyja.’

  Freyja assumed her Crone Aspect. Her skeletal face was terrible.

  ‘You need to get some beauty sleep,’ I said. ‘You’re getting wrinkles. And don’t drink so much beer tonight. You know it makes you fart in bed. Some men may like that kind of thing, but frankly, it’s unappealing.’

  I know, I know. I was on fire. I couldn’t stop myself, which was, I suppose, part of the problem. Someone should have looked out for me. Someone should have stopped me.

  Thor tried. ‘If you want a fight, don’t pick on a bunch of women. Fight like a man.’

  ‘The way you did at Thrym’s place, all dressed up like a bride?’

  Thor took another step forward.

  ‘Or when the old woman wrestled you to the ground at Utgard-Loki’s banquet?’

  Thor made a grab for me. I dodged and helped myself to wine. ‘Slowing down a bit, Thor,’ I said. ‘Mind you, the amount you eat, I’m not surprised. You should work out – better still, get Sif to lend you one of her corsets—’

  Sif gave a wail of protest. ‘You animal! I do not wear corsets!’

  That started me laughing, and once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I went round all the circle of gods, and told them exactly what I thought. The Folk call it a flyting, a ritual name-calling ceremony, and it became a tradition. One of my many gifts to the Folk. Anger is often cathartic, a healing process at moments of stress, although I suppose that, at the time, I should perhaps have given it all just a little more thought.

  As it was, the wine must have gone to my head, because I gave them the works – told Frey he’d been an idiot to give up his runesword for a girl; told Sif she was getting fat; told Njörd he smelt of fish. I told Thor that his mistress Jarnsaxa was pregnant and expecting twins. I told Frigg that Odin had been playing away again. I may also have said something to Týr about the way he lost his arm, and I’m pretty sure I called Heimdall a ‘pimped-up gobshite’. But it was probably a mistake to tell Skadi that her father had squawked like a chicken as he fell ready-roasted into the flames, and then to ask the Enchantress if Golden Boy was still as dead.

  That brought silence to the room. Maybe I had gone too far. Thor picked up his hammer and levelled it at Yours Truly.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Odin softly.

  ‘I’d be doing the Worlds a favour,’ said Thor.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Bring it on. I’m unarmed and outnumbered. That ought to be odds enough for you. Or should I really be blind, as well?’

  The others looked uncomfortable as they remembered Hoder.

  ‘Well,’ I said, turning to go. ‘Much as I hate to leave, folks, it really has been a very dull party, and I have places I need to be.’

  And so I walked out of Aegir’s hall, and as soon as my headache had lifted – which was sometime later that morning – I took hawk guise and made for the hills. Call me over-cautious, but Your Humble Narrator was starting to feel that he had out-stayed his welcome.

  LESSON 8

  Judgement

  Run
first, talk later.

  Lokabrenna

  TURNS OUT my instincts were right again. By the time the hangovers lifted and the sweet light of understanding had dawned, Yours Truly had been unanimously condemned by everyone in Asgard, not just of Balder’s death, but of every crime imaginable.

  Once more, everyone remembered something I’d done to offend them – with the exception of Sigyn, of course, who could never believe anything bad of me, and Idun, who could never really believe anything bad of anyone.

  The rest of them made up for that, however. Skadi was particularly venomous, demanding my blood on the instant, and Heimdall was all too happy to remind them that he had never trusted me, and that if they’d listened to him in the first place, I would never have been allowed to gain a foothold in Asgard.

  Finally, sensing weakness, he dared confront the Old Man.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he said. ‘Loki has declared war on all of us. Are you going to wait until he marches on Asgard with all of Chaos at his heels, or will you finally admit that you were wrong to take him in?’

  Odin gave a low growl. Well, at least I imagine he did. Of course, I wasn’t there to hear it. But I heard enough subsequent dialogue to be able to hazard a pretty good guess. Besides, I knew the Old Man better than he suspected, and I knew that sooner or later he would have to choose a side.

  No prizes for guessing which side he chose. Not that I blame him – well, not much. The others were ready to turn on him if he didn’t condemn me. Besides, I had outlived my usefulness, except perhaps as a means of uniting them in shared hatred. And at that point, I knew that the Old Man needed Order a lot more than he needed Chaos.

  And so began the hunt. Of course, I knew what would happen if I were caught. I had Nine Worlds in which to hide, and runes with which to conceal myself. And I was good at hiding – but I was outnumbered, and friendless, and Odin had his ravens, his people, his spies and his Oracle.

  They combed the Nine Worlds for my signature; tracked me out of Ironwood; tracked me to the Northlands; lost my trail in World Beyond; found it again in the mountains. I kept on the move, shielding myself; changing Aspect whenever I could. Eventually I found a place where I felt almost safe. I hid, hoping to outlast their rage until the crisis was over.

  But the gods were relentless. First, they gave me an ultimatum, scrawled across the sky in glam: Give yourself up. We still have the boys.

  From my hideaway, I sneered. Did they really think I’d fall for something that crude? They knew I was hardly Dad of the Year. And those boys were barely out of their teens. I knew Odin was ruthless, but would he really murder my sons, just for the crime of sharing my blood? Obviously, it was a trap. I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  Then came the birds. Those thrice-damned birds, who’d tracked me to my hideaway, a cave in the Hindarfell mountains. They circled, then came down and perched on an outcrop of rock close by.

  I considered giving them a shot of my glam, but Hugin and Munin had Odin’s protection, and I doubted even my best shot would have even singed their feathers.

  And so I came out to meet them, first checking that they were alone.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The larger bird crawked. The smaller seemed to struggle for speech, pecking at the other one in what seemed like frustration.

  ‘Cake,’ it said in a rusty voice, its golden eyes shining hopefully.

  ‘No chance,’ I said. ‘What does he want?’

  The smaller bird – Munin – flapped its wings. ‘Ack-ack. Come back.’

  ‘What, and leave all this?’ I said. ‘No, I think I’ll stay right here.’

  Munin flapped its wings again. ‘Ack-ack.’

  Hugin joined in the mayhem, pecking at the rock at its feet, flapping its wings and crawking.

  ‘Loki. Two (crawk!) in Asgard,’ said Munin, who clearly had trouble with sibilants.

  ‘Two sons. That’s right.’ I was getting impatient. ‘And if the Old Man really believes that I’m going to give myself up just because he’s holding them hostage in my place . . .’

  ‘Ack-acck!’ said Hugin, beginning to peck at the rock again. The pecks were slow and measured, each one roughly at a second’s interval.

  Peck. Peck.

  Two seconds.

  Peck. Three seconds. He was measuring time.

  I looked at Munin wildly. ‘What’s he doing? What is this?’ I said.

  Munin said: ‘Ack-ax-ty. Ax-ty ack-en.’

  ‘Sixty? Sixty seconds?’ I said. ‘Sixty seconds until what?’

  But I’d already understood. The birds might have problems with language, but I knew Odin only too well. Never forget that the Old Man was as ruthless as I was myself. He wanted to hit me where it hurt. And he knew me very well.

  Hugin was still counting down. Twenty seconds. Twenty-five.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, feeling suddenly cold.

  ‘Come back,’ said Munin.

  Thirty seconds. Peck. Peck. Each one felt like a hammer blow. I knew the Old Man was watching me through the eyes of those damned birds, trying to second-guess my thoughts, trying to outmanoeuvre me.

  ‘I’m not going to fall for this,’ I said. ‘Vali and Narvi mean nothing to me.’

  Peck. Forty seconds. Peck.

  ‘You know you’ve got nothing to bargain with,’ I said, forcing a brave, brash smile. ‘Those boys belong to Sigyn, not me. Killing them won’t change a thing. So go ahead, brother. Do the deed. Put them out of their misery. You’re the one with the conscience, not me. So – do you feel lucky? Play or—’

  And on that syllable, both birds took wing. With a sound like feathered applause, they rose into the ice-blue sky. And at that moment, a world away . . .

  Don’t ask me how I knew. I knew.

  The thing was, he’d corrupted me with feelings and sensations. In my pure, Chaotic form, I wouldn’t have cared for a moment, however many of my children he killed. But here, in this Aspect, weakened; alone; tormented by fear and guilt and remorse; hunger and cold and discomfort – none of them natural to a being like myself, not born to these sensations.

  And the Old Man knew, of course. He was the one who had poisoned me. And he had known how to get to me, and thought he could force me to show myself.

  What did they really expect me to do? Come howling back into Asgard, so they could shoot me down in flames? Declare war? Demand recompense? That’s what a warrior would have done. That might have earned me some respect, according to their twisted honour code.

  But no – it was too late for that. Odin had taken his revenge. Had I really believed he would? Honestly, I don’t know. I’d always known he was capable of doing these things, but to do them to me?

  And so I stayed in hiding, moving from the Hindarfell underground through World Below. The Aesir widened the search for me, sending Skadi to hunt me in the Northlands; Ran to comb the seas with her net; Njörd to search the rivers. Sól and Mani, the Sun and the Moon, roamed the skies in search of me; the Tunnel Folk looked for me underground; everyone was on the alert for the faintest gleam of my signature.

  Frigg was especially tireless. Just as she had canvassed every root and blade of grass after the death of Balder, she now sent out a general call to seek and locate Yours Truly. There was talk of a reward, but mostly folk seemed happy to help. I’d known I wasn’t popular, but not the extent of the hatred levelled at my humble self, growing ever more humble as the circle began to close.

  I won’t lie. I was getting scared. Everyone was against me. I’d holed up in the Northlands, in the valley of the Strond, on top of a hill from which I could see for miles. Under the Hill was a gateway that led to World Below and beyond; it was a kind of crossroads, with escape routes in every direction.

  For months I lived as a fugitive, shielding my signature; saving my glam. I built a hut from turf and wood; I lived on fish from the river below. Winter was coming; I was cold. At night I was afraid to sleep, for fear that they might track me through Dream. In short, I wa
s about as miserable as any of them could have hoped, and yet it wasn’t enough for them. They wanted me to suffer more.

  I don’t know how they found me at last. Perhaps through Dream – I had to sleep. In any case, they came for me, converging on my hiding place like wolves on their prey.

  I saw their signatures too late; a net of runelight, closing fast. Nine of the usual suspects: Heimdall, approaching in hawk Aspect; Skadi, in her snow wolf guise, with her runewhip in her jaws; Thor, with Mjølnir, in his chariot; Njörd, riding a kayak downstream; Frey with his golden boar; Freyja in her falcon cloak; Idun and Bragi on horseback, and of course, the General, mounted on Sleipnir, spear in hand, in full Aspect, flying his colours across the sky like a victory banner.

  There was nowhere left to run. I shifted Aspect to that of a fish and slipped into the river. The water was deep; maybe I could hide among the stones of the river bed. But rivers were Njörd’s territory; he must have seen my colours, somehow. He reached for the fishing net at his belt and cast it into the water. The weighted mesh fell around me like Fate.

  I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I put up a fight, but that it wasn’t nearly enough. The net was woven through with binding-runes, much like the ones that made up Hel’s rope. I later learnt that Hel herself had aided in its construction, presumably as a means of getting back in with the popular crowd. Or maybe her resentment of me was enough to eclipse her dislike of them. In any case, the net was proof against even my Wildfire Aspect, and after several unsuccessful attempts to free myself of its choking mesh, I was hauled onto the bank, naked, freezing and dripping wet.

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Heimdall, unpleasantly.

  I looked away and said nothing. I wasn’t going to plead for my life; it wouldn’t have worked anyway, and I wasn’t about to give Goldie the satisfaction of seeing me beg. Instead I sat up as best I could and affected an air of unconcern.