I Bring the Fire Part III: Chaos

by C. Gockel

  Before he’s reached the door, Nari is responding. “Don’t you remember anything of Baldur, what you saw when Helen was around. He wasn’t golden, he wasn’t good! He was a liar and a fake and got what he deserved!”

  As Sigyn’s hands wrap around the bars of the door, Valli’s scream of rage echoes through the prison. “I’ll kill you!”

  There is the sound of scuffling and cursing. Loki looks over Sigyn’s shoulder, past the guards to see Valli with Nari pinned beneath him. Valli is raining blows on Nari’s face.

  “Stop it!” Sigyn cries, “Stop it.” Loki raises his voice to echo hers, but Valli doesn’t stop.

  “Do something,” says Sigyn to the guards. One of them turns his head slowly to her, but doesn’t bother to respond.

  “Well, then let me out!” Sigyn snaps.

  A few minutes later, Sigyn is escorting Nari and Valli into the cell—pulling Valli by the ear as she does. Nari’s face is rapidly turning purple and Valli won’t meet Loki’s eyes. Loki can’t decide which hurts him more.

  Less than a month later, Loki is standing before the Diar. It’s minutes before the verdict, though he already knows he will be declared guilty. After the verdict is declared, he’ll have to decide, imprisonment or banishment. Taking a deep breath, Loki sends a projection of himself to the Midgard World Gate.

  The gates to the other worlds are almost empty. Most of the Aesir are at the trial; but Heimdall is at his post. Seeing his projection at the gate to Midgard, the gatekeeper approaches. “There are massive crop failures on the continent the World Gate would take you to,” Heimdall says. “The weather patterns are changing. There will be famine this year—and for many more to come. Their religion has changed—you will not be worshipped, most likely they will try to burn you at the stake as a witch. You might make it to a safer region, Loki, but would your sons? Would Sigyn?”

  Loki turns his head and meets Heimdall’s eyes. His wife and sons aren’t as strong as he is in magic. Even if he could keep them safe from starvation or being burned at the stake, he will still watch them all die. He remembers Nari’s bruised face.

  “If you want your family to live, you’ll go to the cave,” Heimdall says.

  Loki swallows. He thinks of Nari and Valli interrupting the ceremony when Gungnir was presented to Odin. He thinks of Helen dying in his arms.

  In the courtroom, the head of the Diar says, “Loki of Asgard, you are found guilty. Do you chose banishment or imprisonment for 200 years, the length of the life you cut short?”

  Loki dissolves his projection at the gates. He turns his head and meets Sigyn’s eyes among the audience. She has not told him what he should do. She sits tall and proud. Nari’s eyes are red when they meet Loki’s. Valli is scowling and looking away. Loki swallows. Sigyn is Sigyn, and he does love her, but it’s his boys that are making his heart clench. They aren’t even grown. They may never grow up if he goes to Midgard.

  “Imprisonment,” Loki says. There are murmurs in the courtroom. Nari starts to cry in earnest, and Valli snaps his attention to Loki.

  Loki turns his head to face the Diar. He feels the cold gray walls of his prison closing in, but he can’t choose the other way; not because he is strong, but because he is a coward. He can’t take watching two more of his children die. He is bound to his children and by them.

  Odin’s voice cracks through the courtroom. “Lead him to the cave.”

  Loki’s not sure why Odin insists on the cave instead of the tower for his imprisonment— perhaps for its seclusion. Located high on a mountain adjacent to the city, it isn’t likely that Loki will receive many visitors. Still, on that first day, when the shackles are affixed to his ankles and wrists at the cave mouth, all of Asgard is there to heckle him. Loki keeps his eyes locked on Sigyn. She keeps her chin up. She does not cry—if she had, he would too. He can only glance at his boys. Nari looks like he will cry again. Valli looks enraged; but this time, Loki knows, it is not rage directed at him. Accepting imprisonment over banishment has redeemed Loki in Valli’s eyes.

  He is just being led down into the cave entrance when Thor’s voice rises above the hecklers. “Wait!”

  The Einherjar leading Loki stop and turn, but Loki does not look until Thor grabs his shoulders and spins him around. “I will watch after your sons as though they are my own,” Thor says and Loki is surprised to see his storm-cloud-blue eyes are wet. Raising his voice so everyone can hear, he adds, “They are under my protection. I give you my oath.”

  Loki can only nod shakily and look away, biting his lip and willing himself not to cry.

  His guards lead him into the darkness of the cave. His shackles are attached to chains set into the cave walls. The shackles aren’t magical, but he has been stripped nearly naked and doesn’t have the tools he uses to pick locks. He wishes he’d spent more time practicing telekinesis.

  He is given enough line that he can walk a few paces in either direction, and there are some large rocks to sit and lie down on. It is cold and damp, and the floor is sticky with snake venom, dripping from a small faucet set into the wall beyond the reach of his chains. That was Skadi's idea; his fellow Jotunn-Asgardian fancies herself the goddess of justice. The venom is necrotic. Loki’s innate magic is too strong for it to be permanently damaging, but it does irritate his bare feet, and is sticky like honey, and gets everywhere. The hope is that it will cause him too much irritation for him to concentrate and perform any serious magic.

  Over the next few weeks—or is it months—it isn’t particularly surprising that Loki falls into a deep depression. Hoenir and Mimir visit. So occasionally does Thor. But Sigyn visits him every day, making sure his hair is brushed, what little clothing he wears isn’t threadbare. She lays fresh straw on the rocks to give him a place to lay above the snake venom and replaces it frequently. She scrubs away what venom she can.

  Sigyn talks about Nari and Valli and Thor’s attempts to make them warriors—successful in Valli’s case, not as successful in Nari’s—the boy was always a bit of a bookworm. Loki is mostly unresponsive. Even when everyday she tells him thank you.

  And then one day she comes with a small glass bowl. “A gift from Odin,” she says, smiling. “Apparently it took some trouble to get. It’s enchanted. Even Heimdall won’t be able to see it.”

  Loki stares at it uncomprehending, scratching where the skin on his legs has begun to blister and bleed from the venom.

  Sigyn takes the bowl and puts it beneath the spigot. The bowl vanishes, but the venom pools harmlessly beneath the spigot without spreading out across the floor. Loki tilts his head, transfixed. The floor has been so stained by the venom at this point it will still look wet.

  And then, one day after Sigyn has tidied up Loki and his cave, Nari and Valli come to visit. Even though Loki’s skin is no longer blistered and red, and even though he’s making an effort to be cheerful, they look terrified. With shaky hands Nari puts a square fabric-covered object on the boulders and then pulls back the cloth.

  In the cage sits a rabbit with the hind legs of a chicken. “Do you like him?” says Nari. “I put him together in Hoenir’s shop. I’m calling him a ricken, from the English words ‘rabbit’ and ‘chicken’.”

  “I’m the one who stole the leftover pieces of chicken and rabbit in the kitchens!” Valli says proudly. “I had to fight a servant boy to get them!”

  Loki stares at the creature, and nearly chokes. It’s much more than he ever managed in the monster making department. “It’s beautiful,” Loki murmurs.

  “He can stay with you, so you don’t get so lonely,” says Valli.

  Nari coughs. “We made the cage with Hoenir. The little drawer at the bottom is to make the cage easier to clean.”

  Loki blinks at the cage. As lovely as the gesture is, he doesn’t want the responsibility of a pet that might hop out and knock over the venom bowl. He is about to suggest the boys keep it when Nari clears his throat. “Open the drawer, Father.”

  Loki raises an eyebrow, but does
, assuming the boys want to demonstrate their craftsmanship.

  As the drawer slips open, he blinks. There is a little compartment beneath the hay. In it is a book.

  Loki looks at his boys and wife. Nari swallows. Valli waggles his eyebrows. Sigyn is smirking.

  Loki looks back to the book. It’s bound in white leather and no larger than his palm, but the fact that Hoenir went to so much trouble to have his family smuggle it in means that it is exactly the sort of reading material the Diar, Heimdall, Skadi, and possibly Odin himself, would not approve of.

  For the first time since entering the cave, Loki smiles genuinely.

  Later that afternoon when the boys and Sigyn are gone, Loki pulls the ricken onto his lap, and opens the little volume. A sheet of parchment falls out. Picking it up, Loki reads:

  The book is yours. Keep it. Heimdall won’t be able to see it with his Sight, but anyone who comes to the cave will be able to see it with their eyes. Keep it in the cage.

  Burn this parchment and tell no one I’ve written this.

  Hoenir

  Fingering the parchment, Loki tilts his head. It’s the only time Hoenir has ever ‘spoken’ to him. He doesn’t even have a voice to imagine with the slanted script. He doesn’t want to set the parchment alight, but he does. When only ash is left he opens the book again. It is the journal of a fellow named Lothur...who seems to have been a bit mad. At the very beginning of the journal Lothur states he’s enchanted it so that only he can read it, but Loki is reading it. Obviously there were a few arrows missing from Lothur’s quiver.

  Loki turns to the next page and his eyes widen. It is a journal, but not just. It is also a book of magic. How to make oneself invisible even to magical sight, how to make multiple projections, how to split molecules and turn water to flame, how to do telekinesis and much more. Most excitingly, it tells how to open branches of the World Tree and walk the In-Between.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Loki would have found the book very interesting. But he wouldn’t have had the patience to master its contents. In the cave, Loki has nothing better to do. Within a decade he is slipping his shackles and travelling invisibly to visit Sigyn and to watch over his boys. Within a century he is visiting other worlds.

  He even travels to Midgard, where he might have been banished. Continuously being swept with plague, the world is in chaos. In the upheaval he is able to abscond with a magical scabbard that protects its wearer from harm. This he covertly lets Nari ‘find’ on a walk in the woods, because Thor has told Loki he is worried that Nari’s interest in reading is keeping him from honing his martial skills. Loki also gets Nari a copy of the Magna Carta, because Nari has spoken excitedly of it.

  For Valli, the more apt warrior, Loki steals a sword capable of moving the winds. And he finds a copy of the Odyssey and the Illiad, because he wishes the boy would read, even just a little.

  In the cave, Loki has no courtly obligations. The only binds he has are to his family and to Thor.

  When he went into the cave he saw it as a prison. By the end of his imprisonment he has almost begun to think of it as an oasis from courtly gossip and responsibility. When he emerges from his fetters, he has to carefully illusion himself to look frail and wasted. In reality he is stronger than he has ever been.

  Chapter 9

  Lower Wacker drive is every dystopian future movie director’s wet dream. From the entrance on Van Buren the two-lane thoroughfare runs north underground for about a mile and a quarter. The north and south-going lanes are separated by heavy columns of cement and a heavy black iron fence. Both directions have service lanes adjacent that butt up against underground loading docks. Normally the north-south section of the road is lit by garish yellow lighting, but that went out two troll attacks ago. Now the only lighting comes from the few entrances, the cracks to open sky at the loading docks and the old ramps mostly sealed off during early 2000’s remodeling. Between those glimpses of sky, the only lighting comes from the Humvee’s headlights.

  Further north, Lower Wacker bends along the Chicago River and runs east-west to Lakeshore Drive. The north side of the east-west part of the road is open to the river.

  But this north-south stretch gives Steve the creeps—even though this is his fourth time traversing it today and they’ve yet to see anything suspicious or get a single peep from the magic detector at Steve’s belt.

  When the light of the Van Buren ramp comes into view, everyone, including himself, sighs with relief.

  The Humvee stops and Steve gets out at the checkpoint. The black shadows of Huginn and Muninn flutter around him, crapping on the pavement and laughing—the damn birds had followed Steve and his team through the tunnel. From beyond the checkpoint he hears the click of cameras. He glances up to see reporters standing openly in the street beyond the sandbags.

  “Oooo...let’s get our pictures taken!” one of the ravens squawks. The two ravens flap down to the sandbags. The press ignores them for only a moment, then one of ravens gives a loud squawk. “Baby, make me famous!” The cameras start clicking and the press corp start laughing.

  Shaking his head, Steve turns away. The sergeant in charge of the checkpoint steps forward. As he salutes, Steve’s earpiece starts to buzz. Tapping to accept, he hears Bryant’s voice over the line. “We just came up the ramp on Monroe. I haven’t picked up anything. Brett’s at the Lake Shore Drive intersection and he isn’t getting any readings..”

  Steve nods. “I didn’t detect anything either.”

  “Liddel said our instruments aren’t sensitive enough, and we will only be able to detect gates while they’re open,” says Bryant. “Too bad he isn’t powerful enough to sense the gates either.”

  Steve bows his head. Nor can he close the gates, unlike Loki.

  A third connection opens up. “Agent Rogers,” Bautista says, “keep sweeping Lower Wacker until the end of your shift.”

  “Acknowledged, Sir,” says Steve. He motions for MacAuley to turn the vehicle around. He’s just about to head to the Humvee when he catches the scent of something wonderful. He sniffs and looks around. One of the press guys at the checkpoint is sipping a coffee from a 7-11 coffee cup.

  Steve blinks. “7-11 is still open?”

  The sergeant smiles. “Yep. A lot better than MREs.”

  Steve smiles as he turns to the Hummer. It’s a bright bit of optimism in a city that is otherwise falling apart.

  Behind him, Huginn and Muninn start to squawk, and then they flutter up to the roof of the Hummer. “Hurry up, Steve!” one of them says. Steve’s just opening the door of the vehicle when the two ravens start squawking madly amongst themselves. One of them looks down with a beady eye and says, “Have fun! We’re outta here.”

  With a rawk they both take off. Steve follows them with his eyes as they bypass the press and fly off into the blue.

  Steve stops in his tracks.

  The earpiece and his magic detector both start beeping. Tapping his headpiece, Steve hears Bryant say, “I’ve got a strong reading, I’m guessing directly below us.”

  “Which side of the road is it on, north or south? Does Brett detect anything?”

  “South lane,” says Bryant.

  “I got nothing,” says Brett.

  Bryant’s voice crackles. “It just keeps going...it’s not weakening or getting stronger, just steady and—”

  Brett is up Wacker in the other direction and he’s not getting a reading. Steve’s heart starts pumping double time.

  A loud, deep sound, like steam rushing through pipes fills the tunnel.

  “Did a water main burst?” someone says.

  Turning to the checkpoint, Steve shouts. “Get the press out of here! We’ve got a wyrm and it’s heading in this direction.” Taking off towards the Humvee he calls out. “MacAuley back it up into the south-going lane and open the back. Johnston, get a flare ready, everyone else, ready the RPGs!”

  MacAuley backs the vehicle back into the south-going lane and pauses just long enough for Johnston t
o throw open one of the doors. As he climbs in Steve catches a glimpse of reporters trying to run past the Guard team.

  The press...7-11....There are still civilians in this town.

  Swinging himself into the Humvee, Steve says, “Night vision goggles—everyone!”

  Slipping on his goggles, Jarett says, “What’s the plan, Sir?”

  “We’re making ourselves wyrm bait,” says Steve.

  Someone coughs.

  “Keep backing up McAuley!” Steve says. “We need to be able to pull forward quickly.”

  The magic detector at Steve’s hip is still beeping, low and steady. To himself as much as anyone else he says, “It’s a long one...and we are not letting this thing into our city.”

  “Aye, Sir!” says Kane. He and Jarrett are kneeling, facing out the back hatch of the Humvee, grenade launchers on their shoulders.

  Steve and Kane, reading their RPGs, stand behind them. “When it opens its mouth, fire and aim at the back of the throat. MacAuley, when I give the order, you swerve.”

  “Aye,” she says.

  “What are we looking for?” says Jarrett, his voice a little shaky. “Shit? Are those things eyes?”

  Steve blinks behind his goggles. Sure enough, he sees two green ovals in the distance. In the dark, and without knowing how big the thing is, it’s hard to tell how far away.

  “Flare!” shouts Steve. Johnston shoots a flare into the darkness. The wyrm comes into view not 50 meters down the tunnel. As the flare hits, the wyrm thrashes, the earth shakes beneath the Humvee, and MacAuley hits the brakes. “Did that thing just cause an earthquake?” she says.

  The flare goes out and suddenly there’s nothing but reptilian eyes and the shadow of the creature coming forward fast.

  “It knows we’re here....MacAuley, be ready—”

  “Its mouth is open!” shouts Jarrett.

  “Fire!” says Johnston.

  Kane and Jarrett’s RPGs explode simultaneously into darkness. “Swerve!” shouts Steve. The Humvee lurches, and everyone in the back rolls as MacAuley makes a hard right. There is the sound of muffled explosions. Just as Steve exhales a breath and tries to stand up, the Humvee is lifted from the ground and shaken from side to side. Metal groans, and glass cracks.