The Fires of Muspelheim

by Matt Larkin

  “Thank you. Brother.”

  Loki snorted. “Brother?” he asked, when Odin turned back to him.

  Odin leaned back on his elbows, grateful for even the slight respite. “Without doubt. You saved my life and that of my little brother. You alone helped me uphold my vow. You may not have been born of the same woman as I …” But what did that even matter? No one controlled what family they were born to, but there was no reason you couldn’t choose others. Rolling to his side, Odin pulled a knife from his belt. Loki stared at it without any hint of alarm. Pity—Odin had expected to at least startle the foreigner.

  Instead Loki raised his eyes from the knife to Odin’s face. Odin drew the knife along his palm, opening a shallow cut. “We shall be brothers in blood, my friend, until the end of our days.” He held up his dripping palm for Loki to see, then passed the knife.

  The other man took it without hesitation, though he did watch Odin’s eyes a moment before opening his own palm. “Some things cannot be undone.” He set the knife by the fire, then offered his hand.

  Odin clasped it, mingling their blood. “Nor should they.”

  And then, there he was, crouched in the snow, little changed since those early days when they had first met. Face almost as much as puzzle as it had been back then, those crystal blue eyes searching Odin’s own eye. Desperate, perhaps longing for urd to unfold in some way other than how he’d foreseen, and how Odin had lived.

  But despite Loki’s gambit, or even because of it, history was immutable. Merciless in its procession. The chains of fate stronger than orichalcum.

  And perhaps Freyja had not been entirely in the wrong. The essence of a soul did lie, somewhat, in memory. A sea of memories, yes, built upon foundational ones that compounded to create the essence of a man.

  Faced with the utter certainty of loss, a loss that had suddenly become almost unbearable, all the wounds that had so long festered now seemed shallow grazes washed away by the tides. Cleansed.

  For there, sitting across from him, was the closest friend Odin had ever had. One who knew well how badly he had wronged Odin, wronged the world, and still, in his own way, tried to save it. Tried to save Odin, as much as he could.

  His dearest friend.

  Overcome with choking emotion, Odin threw his arms around Loki’s shoulders and embraced him, not caring about the tears that welled in his eye. “I … love you, brother.”

  Maybe … it was the only thing left to say now.

  Loki returned his embrace, his unshakable calm finally broken as he trembled, ever so slightly. Because, underneath the countless millennia of his life, Loki was, after all, but human. True, neither of them could afford to truly be good men, given the stakes they faced, but they could, at least, at the last, be honest about the bond they shared.

  And when Odin pulled away, the look on Loki’s face served to confirm it, the reality, the realization. They would not look upon each other again.

  At least, not in this lifetime.

  Arms at his side, Odin flung himself back into the tides of time, into the merciless current that would carry him toward the destiny he could not avoid a moment longer. For if he were not there to fight Ragnarok, all that had transpired and all he and Loki had sacrificed would prove in vain.

  So he found himself standing on a beach, staring out at the sea, the mist no longer encroaching on the brilliant isles, burned away by the flames. In their place, a wall had somehow arisen around the island, shimmering, glistening with water. Almost black.

  It took Odin a moment to recognize that glistening for what it was: scales.

  The scales of a serpent immense beyond imagining, encircling this entire island and cutting it off from the rest of the world.

  And he knew—though he had never given consideration to it nor much believed it possible—what had transpired.

  Woken by the cataclysmic shift in the nature of reality, the greatest of all sea serpents, one said to encircle the world, had, in truth, come and encircled the source of destruction. Spawned from chaos, it was drawn to chaos.

  Jörmungandr. The World Serpent.

  Perhaps it had come to devour him.

  He walked the shore, having seen no sign of frost jotunnar still on the island, and could not help but cast glances at the behemoth trapping him here, ever fearing to find the monstrous head attached to that body.

  As Odin looked on, he realized those scales moved in the waters, as the serpent slowly circled the island.

  For a time, he wandered, until at last coming to find Freyja and Idunn lurking at the rainforest’s edge, seeming equally bemused at Jörmungandr’s bulk.

  A moment Odin hesitated, then pressed on, shaking his head as he approached the two women. At his approach, Freyja brightened and came racing toward him, kicking up sand along the beach.

  Beautiful. Glorious.

  And Odin could not shake the image of her writhing underneath her brother.

  He caught her wrists rather than allow her to embrace him.

  “What?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

  And all he could do was grimace. A moment. But he owed her an answer, however terrible, and Idunn seemed content to give them this moment alone. “I saw you.”

  “Saw me what?”

  The words stuck on his tongue. They choked him, so foul. “I saw you … letting Frey …” Odin grunted, hardly able to even form his accusation. Had any dared to speak such before him, he’d have had their heads for it. The claim alone would have demanded a holmgang, and to the death. “I saw you and Frey …” He sucked air between his teeth. “Intimate.”

  Freyja cocked her head a moment, then jerked her wrists away and folded her arms over her chest. “You really are jumping through time, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. And you have not answered the …” What? It wasn’t even a question. He’d seen it.

  Freyja shrugged. “Answered what? That it was custom among many Vanir, especially twins? You do know my parents were twins themselves?”

  Odin flinched. Njord and Nerthus? He hadn’t known it, nor had aught he’d read made mention of it. Perhaps, if what she said was true, Vanr society did not think to record it for it was not uncommon enough.

  He ought to accept that.

  Instead, he turned from her, unable to make himself look upon her radiant face. The thought of such custom churned his stomach. Right or wrong, he could not deny the visceral disgust it engendered in him.

  “Fine,” she snapped after a moment more.

  When Odin finally looked back for her, she had stormed off into the forest, leaving a bewildered-looking Idunn in her wake.

  Idunn poked at the campfire. “The Vanir, the First Ones, they were not a homogenous people.”

  Odin sat across from her, hands on his knees. Waiting for Freyja to come back. Knowing she wouldn’t. He’d hurt her, of course. And still, he could not forget what he’d seen.

  Idunn had continued speaking, sporadically, about these customs, but Odin did not even really wish to hear. That something was accepted did not make it acceptable. Tradition alone offered little justification for violation of morality. When he’d tried to say as much, though, Idunn had questioned how morality could be legitimately applied to consensual sexual conduct.

  “Those who Grandmother first joined were a collection of refugees from the Skyfall Isles and areas around them. But they joined with others as they trekked across the continent, and the groups melded. I think the word Vanr meant something like ‘friend’ in one of the languages of those she met, and, because Chandi wanted to unite humanity, she encouraged the group to befriend any who would come.” She was staring at him now, but Odin kept his gaze locked on the fire. He didn’t want to hear justifications for this. “Among some of those branches, there was no incest taboo, at least not among royalty.”

  “That only makes them wrong.”

  Petty human morality, Valravn said with a chuckle. Wrapped in a self-indulgent circle.

  Idunn snorted, then shrug
ged. “Because they thought differently than you? If there is such a thing as morality …” From the corner of his eye, he caught her wince. “If there is … surely it hinges only upon harming others who don’t wish the harm. Claiming Freyja hurt you by whoever she lay with before you were even born, that’s not a legitimate wound, Odin. It’s arrogance.”

  The worst of it was, he knew Idunn spoke the truth.

  And it sickened him all the more.

  Part III

  Year 400, Age of the Aesir

  Winter

  21

  Though he knew it for an indulgence, Loki had allowed himself the thought that he might have turned away from what lay ahead. From the result he’d known was coming since meeting with Odin centuries ago. For a time, Loki had looked deep into the flame, trying to decipher exactly when and where this battle would take place.

  He knew it was coming, and he’d allowed himself, briefly, to consider taking another path. An indulgence, because history did not allow him to make such a choice, nor had it ever. Besides the risk of paradox inherent in walking away from his path, he would have risked damning Odin and potentially unraveling the final days of this era.

  Still, it pained him, tearing himself from Sigyn’s side, and even leaving Hel, his precious child. But history was bigger than him, or his family, or any family.

  And if Odin was to fight his final battle, Loki had to ensure he made it there, as he had always done.

  Strange, knowing the man had made his reconciliations with Loki before Loki had suffered the true ravages of Odin’s wrath. But such paradoxes were familiar, redeemed by themselves, and tolerable. Loki could scarcely remember a timeline not interwoven into such knots.

  So he had come to Asgard, and watched it burn with the flames of Muspelheim. Fires he had stolen so very long ago, and tried to so desperately to control.

  The very world shook at their release, and Loki sheltered within a lagoon, watching the sky catch flame, watching the immolation of an era begin. It was an agony, seeing the end of so many lives, and knowing, on some level, they died because of the choices he had made. The world inundated in blood only so it could rise anew.

  And Loki, left with a flickering hope he dare not even given voice to, lest the Norns or Ananke strip him of it and undermine the final facet of his gambit.

  Later, from the underbrush, he watched as Heimdall attacked Odin, and as Odin vanished, swept away into the sea of time, his form seeming to melt into currents in the sky. Gone to meet him, a meeting Loki had lived long ago, and now had to fulfill.

  Then, sheathed sword in hand, Loki rose and advanced on Heimdall. “Watcher.”

  The guardian spun on him now, glaring. “You.”

  “I cannot allow you to go after Odin again.”

  “Your puppet has undermined the balance of creation once more, devastatingly so. He cannot be allowed to walk away from such actions unscathed.”

  Loki shrugged. “He won’t.” Odin would suffer, maybe more than any others, save perhaps for Loki himself. It was always the way. “Besides, the balance was already disrupted.”

  “This world had settled into an equilibrium already, adapted to the prevalence of mist resulting from the last revolution of the cycle. A cycle which, some have begun to believe, does not necessarily serve our ultimate ends. Either way, he has carried it too far.”

  Loki raised his sword grimly. As he pulled it from its sheath, flames sprang up along Lavaeteinn’s blade. “There are not so many of you left, Watcher. Do you truly wish to cast aside your immortal existence in a fight with me? Foreswear any further pursuit of Odin.” Though Loki knew well enough Heimdall would do no such thing.

  “Your arrogance is matched only by his.” Heimdall hefted his own oversized sword. “And you shall finally be struck down for it.” A beat of his wings hurled Heimdall forward with the force of a gale.

  Loki flung himself to the ground, rolled under the charging Watcher, and came up, runeblade raised. An instant later, Heimdall spun around, blade descending. Loki parried, the clang of blades like a gong. Heimdall’s strength numbed his arms, even with pneuma drawn.

  The Watcher’s foot snapped up and Loki just managed to twist out of the way of a kick that would have caved in his ribs. Grunting, he whipped Lavaeteinn back up. The runeblade slashed against Heimdall’s golden mail, scourging links but barely scraping the flesh beneath.

  Heimdall’s hand caught his shoulder and shoved, sending Loki stumbling away. Another beat of those wings had the Watcher soaring at him. This time, Loki did not try to parry, but rather let himself fall, rolling to the side.

  His foe’s godlike speed forced him onto the defensive immediately, dodging, parrying, whipping his runeblade around as fast as he could. Growling, the Watcher led with an aggressive slash that might have taken Loki’s head clean off. Loki ducked under it and scored a gouge along Heimdall’s leg. The guardian’s fist caught Loki in the chest and sent him flying backward.

  Gasping for air.

  Seeming hardly affected by the pain, Heimdall charged in once more, his attacks almost blinding in their fury. The Watcher had strength and speed that would have awed even most spirits. An incarnation of power that could have crushed a mortal army single-handedly.

  Fighting him was a kind of madness, perhaps, but Loki could not allow Heimdall to kill Odin.

  Sweat streamed down Loki’s back as he dodged around the Watcher once more. Even with his pneuma, he could not outlast Heimdall. The Watcher had nigh unlimited stamina.

  Loki darted around a tree, trying to gain a moment’s respite.

  Heimdall’s fist burst through the trunk an instant later, splintering it, sending shards flying. His kick a heartbeat later sent the whole tree crashing down, its boughs scraping against those of nearby trees in cacophony.

  Loki pivoted, leapt to another tree, and kicked off the trunk to gain enough height to reach the boughs of another.

  As expected, Heimdall flapped his wings and surged upward, racing at Loki like an arrow from a bow. Loki flipped over the ascending Watcher, twisted around, and—bellowing—slashed with Lavaeteinn as he fell. The flaming runeblade tore through Heimdall’s wing, igniting feathers, shredding cartilage, and leaving a bloody, horrid mess in its wake.

  The Watcher fell screaming to the forest floor, pitching end over end, unbalanced.

  Loki landed in a crouch several feet away, caught himself, and charged in once more.

  Heimdall shrieked in terrifying rage, bringing that blade up over his head. Blood now streamed from his ruined wing, flopping about the rainforest as the Watcher advanced on Loki.

  A sudden twinge of regret seized Loki at so mutilating the Watcher. One he pushed down. Heimdall would now stop at naught to kill him, and Loki must return the favor. He had always known it would come to this.

  Roaring, the Watcher charged in, sweeping his massive blade in great arcs. The tight confines of the rainforest ought to have impeded the use of so large a weapon. But the blade had begun to glow incandescent, and it sheared through tree branches as though they weren’t even there. Where it passed, wood and leaves exploded into embers, flitting around on the wind.

  Loki fell into a stance he’d learned in Old Tianxia, a dance to deflect blows with minimum force, given his arms remained numb from parrying so many blows already. He dodged, twisted, pushing blows aside with his own blade only when absolutely necessary.

  A slight opening allowed him to score a hit on Heimdall’s ribs. Once again, his runeblade proved able to cut through the mail, but just barely. Not enough to slow the Watcher. Not enough to win this.

  No matter what it took, Loki would not allow Odin to fail this. The world could not survive that. And that meant, at whatever cost, Loki had to stop Heimdall.

  And then the Watcher’s backhand sent Loki flying, spinning through the air. Everything out of focus.

  The wind knocked from him as he slammed down on roots and tumbled off them. The runeblade slipped from his grasp, and with it the extr
a stamina and pneuma it granted.

  Heimdall stalked in. “I’m going to destroy you, then I’ll rip his soul from his body!”

  Loki panted, struggling to catch his breath. “… Barely handle me … how do you … expect to fight him?”

  The Watcher sneered. “You’re always so sure about him. He’s weak. He’s never become all you hoped for, has he? And now, I’m going to make sure he never does. Perhaps the time has come for the cycle to end.”

  “No.” Loki patted around until his fingers closed in on Lavaeteinn’s hilt.

  Heimdall shook his head. “You die now. After so very long, finally, you die.”

  Loki grimaced.

  The Watcher charged, half-leaping over the root maze, shreds of his wing flapping behind him.

  He had to die. Heimdall had to die so that Odin could succeed.

  The cycle could not break.

  Loki jerked Lavaeteinn upward, allowing the Watcher to impale himself on the runeblade, even as Heimdall drove his massive sword straight down through Loki’s chest.

  The impact felt like getting kicked by an elephant. It stole his breath once more. The Watcher’s blade shot through Loki’s ribs, snapping them like kindling, punched through his lung and out, pinning him to the roots below.

  But Lavaeteinn rent Heimdall’s mail and plunged right through the Watcher’s heart.

  All strength slipped from Loki, his hand opening, releasing the runeblade.

  Heimdall vomited a torrent of blood down onto Loki’s face and slumped to his knees, his expression a war of shock and rage. Disbelief at his death after eons of life.

  Choking.

  Choking on his own blood. Everything turning dim, distorted.

  Loki’s mind not working. Body giving out.

  His blood filled his throat, his mouth. Dribbled from the corners.