Chapter 3
The quest was decreed, and all preparations for it was made with due haste. Packs were packed by the menservants, and they were to set out within the day. Loki made no secret of his eagerness to leave.
“We shall depart as soon as Sif and the Warriors Three join us,” Thor promised when he took over reins from the guards outside Odin’s halls. “We will wait at the stables.”
So they walked to the stables, and they walked an arm’s width apart. Once upon a time, the golden prince would have slung his arm around his darker sibling’s shoulder, and as they walked, there would have been quips and jests and laughter. But the past year had been cruel, and the wall erected between the two now was a hard thing to crack, for it was lined with briar thorns and many winters’ seeping cold, and each small crevice seeped of icy, cruel thoughts.
“I thought you had nothing to do with Fenrir,” Thor said, finally, when they stood in front of Sleipnir’s stall.
“I cannot tell you where he is,” Loki said, facing Odin’s steed and his once-upon son. But I cannot was not the same as I know not, and what was said was worth as much as what went unspoken. “But he is my blood, and I can find him.”
Blood had little to do with it beyond use as an anchor in a locating spell or two, but he was not about to let Thor know that. Nor was he, quite honestly, prepared to perform one. Yet Thor seemed content with the answer, the trusting fool that he was. Loki turned to hide a brittle smile, and Sleipnir neighed softly and licked his fingers.
“He remembers you still, brother.” Thor said, stepping closer.
It was an unwelcomed promiscuity; Loki’s back stiffened, and he pushed himself closer to his son and further from the not-brother. Sleipnir rested its head upon its mother’s shoulders as Loki stroked its mane.
“Of course,” Loki scoffed. “I doubt you would comprehend motherhood, Odinson. Blood calls to blood.”
One thing went unobserved by Thor the Thunderer: thin tendrils of power escaped from Loki’s fingertips and curled their way deep into Sleipnir’s mane, sinking and settling marrow-deep. Softly, soothingly, Slepnir’s eyes closed and breaths slowed, and swayed on its feet.
“Our packs, brother.” Thor said when the things came, handing one of the leather sacks to Loki, and waving the menservants away. They bowed and ducked their away, sneaking peeks at the black prince.
Loki nodded, leaving the sack to fall upon the ground. He pulled his hands away from Sleipnir, and it drew a startled neigh. “Hush, my son,” whispered the mother to the child. “I will come for you again.”
When Loki pulled away again, his child did not cry, and that was a small solace to be had. And if there was something choking up his own throat, it would be blamed on the collar that fitted too tightly upon his throat.
His collar. Ha. A finger reached up to touch the thing, ignoring the mild buzz of warning that jolted his neck. Thor eyed him apologetically, but Loki stayed cold. His collar’s powers were fading, its magic devoured slowly but steadily, and in another hour or two it would become simple décor.
He had learned much in the abyss that was the Void.
“I’m afraid father has the key to that,” Thor said, an apology issued on the behalf of someone else.
I know, Loki thought, but did not speak. An hour or two, he reminded himself, his fingers flexing. It seemed a strange day indeed, when Thor spoke more than Loki Silvertongue did. Silver tongue rotted and turned to lead. Loki smiled at the humour of it.
“I see our friends. Come, brother. Let us saddle the horses before they arrive, and we shall ride to the Bifrost together.”
Your friends, Loki thought as he nodded.
***
The short ride was uncomfortable.
Thor rode ahead with Sif beside him, and they murmured a quiet conversation. The Warriors Three flunked Loki, keeping watch over the wayward Prince. Loki himself made for another row, singular and alone, as he was wont to do. Other than the quiet murmurings from ahead, the rest of the group were silent.
They made their way past the busy afternoon markets, and where Loki was recognized, a tense nervousness would descend upon the people. The brave ones pointed and sneered. The timid ones turned their faces away. The songs of his deeds had spread widely, and all the bards had sung of the second prince at least once.
So Loki sat with a ramrod back, chin held high and lips pressed tight. This is what I wanted; he told himself, stilling his own wicked heart. They see me now, more than they see Thor. And if the price of this recognition was his name and his life torn from his grasp while he gasped like a mewling kit, then so be it, and he would be a steel wrought wall of iron-crafted convictions because there was more here, more at stake now, then simply a good name.
The loped-sided smirk that twisted across his face brought no one comfort.
They reached the city walls and continued towards Heimdall at too slow a pace, and discomfort rolled off Fandral most visibly. Loki could feel the man’s eyes drilling into his back. It was a quaint feeling. But in some ways, the slow pace was necessary, was good, and was a stroke of luck within this luckless land.
His cuffs loosened against flesh, and the collar was no longer so tight. Almost unseen, black tendrils of power ate at the embedded Vanir magic.
When they had at last arrived, the group slipped off their horses and trusted the beasts to be collected later. Heimdall gazed at them impassively, and Thor glanced at his brother.
“Where shall we go, Loki?”
A moment of hesitation earned a sharp glance from Sif. “Midgard,” he said. “We go to Midgard.”
***
Many were the ways to travel between Realms, and Bifrost was but one of them. The simplest and safest of the ways, but it was not the only.
If the Bifrost was a well trodden path, then the shadowed ways between the reams were barely marked, barely seen things, well fraught with dangers that hunted and haunted, and travellers were more prone to falling off than travelling on.
Falling off was an ill-advised fate. Loki would know. He had fallen once.
The shadowed ways were the domain of the mages and the magicians, magic imbued in the pathways’ very essence. For those who could not bend the greater powers into a cloak of protection, the shadowed ways promised an eternity lost in nothingness.
Someone who had travelled a lifetime through the twisted secret pathways between the worlds would, however, learn that there were ways to slip onto the shadowed paths whilst on a journey through the Bifrost. It was a simple matter of bending the non-Euclidean geometry with a trickle of power, and taking a step to one side.
Simple, really.
The Odinson was making this too easy. With an illusion to replace himself until the fools reach Midgard, Thor and his merry band would not even notice until much too late.
Odin’s decree bounded Loki Odinson to a quest. It was a shame that no one thought to remind the old King that Loki was no Odinson.
***
Loki landed gracelessly, falling on his knees into the snow-covered ice of Jötunheimr’s southern-most isles. His hands froze with a bitter bite as he pushed himself up to stand.
Mountain ranges towered above, and before them he was a minutiae thing. Before him, carved into the very walls of the mountain itself, were bronze doors that span six times his arms’ width, and were three times taller than even Thor. The doors themselves were inscribed with runes of power, and frozen vines decorated the edges and sides.
Strange, how even monsters could produce majestic works.
Without preamble, Loki stepped forward and knocked.