Nidavellir
I could almost smell the tension in the aetheric currents that was the telltale sign of a hole torn between the realms. I’d sought out and traveled a few hidden paths in my life, but not often, and I wasn’t expert enough to tell the size of the rent, or what realm it was connected to. The barge drifted down until it rested, rocking gently, on the surface of the sea that flowed from Asgard’s central mountains to cascade over the edge of its odd topography.
“You’ll want this,” Loki said, handing me a necklace before draping an identical one around his own neck. As I held it I recognized it as a diver’s charm, which would provide a bubble of breathable air around the wearer’s head as they moved underwater. I debating telling Loki that I didn’t need it, since I was capable of holding my breath much longer than most Aesir and in a pinch could give myself rudimentary gills, but decided that it’d be easier to wear it instead.
“You can swim, yes?” he said, pausing on the edge of the skybarge. I nodded, and he smiled. “I thought so, but it’s always good to check.” Without further preamble, he stepped over the side of the barge, plunging into the clear water.
Once I was in the water as well, Loki surfaced and whistled a command to the skybarge, which lifted up slowly along the wall of the canyon, still covered in its obscuring shroud. “It’ll park nearby, but not too close,” he said, then looked at me holding onto the rocky shelf beside him. “Follow me closely, but do try not to get kicked in the head.” He grinned and twisted a thread of aether around his fingers, giving it a faint greenish glow, then ducked his head under the water and began pulling himself down along the wall of the canyon.
I followed him, using the rocks to guide my path as I swam and trying not to let myself get distracted by the glimpses of marine life I could see through the clear, bright water. The aetheric scent of the hole grew stronger as we continued down, though I couldn’t yet see it. Loki, climbing head-down like a squirrel, abruptly twisted and then vanished below me. I hastened to follow him, and in a moment I saw him again, treading water as he waited for me under a shelf of rock, completely hidden from the surface. He smirked at me, then swam off, gliding just under the stony ledge. The sunlight faded rapidly into a gloomy half-light as I followed the glow of the light in his hand.
The horizontal plane of the rock above us intersected another vertical wall that continued down into the sea. Along the inside corner where they met was a fissure in the stone, making it look like one brick had been placed atop another pair, but the edges hadn’t been perfectly aligned. A triangular hole tunneled into the fissure, and I followed Loki into the dark tunnel.
The uneven walls of the submerged cavern were very close, and I bumped my shoulders, knees, and hands against the stone several times. Without Loki’s light, it would have been pitch black. I could sense the change in the aetheric composition of the water and knew that the passage between realms was close, but I had no idea how long the tunnel would continue underwater. I was very glad that I’d accepted the necklace when I realized I was long past the farthest point I could have held my breath. The cavern seemed to bend almost vertically, so that we were climbing up a chimney, but then abruptly it shifted, and I felt I was falling head-first down into the darkness. I paused to clear my head, and noticed that the light ahead of me had also stopped. After a few moments we continued on. Soon, the passage leveled to a horizontal tunnel again, before opening out into the bowl of a small lake.
I broke the surface next to Loki and looked around. His dim light spell was sufficient to show that we were in a natural cavern. The air was clean, but stale, and I guessed that this chamber was far underground. I followed the Jotun as he swam to the edge of the lake and climbed out onto the uneven rocks.
“What realm are we in now?” I asked, my voice echoing in the darkness.
Loki sketched out a simple aetheric pattern, and I felt the water coursing off my body, leaving both of us dry and warm. “Nidavellir,” he said, as he bent to inspect the toes of his boots, then used another pattern to repair the slight abrasion damage that had been done to his clothing in the tunnel. “This cavern is unconnected from the surface, with a collapsed tunnel completely blocking any entrance other than the way we came. Ragnar’s camped just a little down this way,” he added, gesturing to what I’d thought was a shadow on the irregular wall, but turned out to be the mouth of another tunnel, this one big enough for us to walk through together.
The passage climbed briefly and brought us into a large gallery, much larger than the sauna room in our suite in the palace. I could see the full extent of it by virtue of a constellation of lights in various colors, some attached to pillars, others drifting freely like small clouds. The entire chamber was covered in Loki’s now familiar shroud, and I traced the pattern to a small device, which I guessed was providing power to keep the ward active as well as an anchor for the spell. There was a small pavilion near the center of the cavern, and as we approached it a flap opened. “Loki? Who’s that with you?” Ragnar’s voice was sharp and querulous in the gloomy silence.
“Do not fear, my friend.” As we emerged into the well-lit center, Loki allowed the light wrapped around his finger to disperse. “I have brought Sigynazor, our friend from the Nastrond delegation, to help me. Zie can be trusted.”
Ragnar tumbled out of the tent and stared at me, then at Loki. He seemed healthy, but disheveled, and I winced at the wild fear and agitation that bristled across his aura. “To help? To get this out of me? I can feel them looking for me, they still demand me to do… the thing,” he said, nearly choking on the last few words as he forced them out past the web of the geas.
“Calm yourself, Ragnar,” Loki said, glancing at me before approaching the red-haired Aesir and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, that is why we are here. But we are a bit chilled from our swim—would you be so kind as to provide us with some mulled cider?”
“Yes, yes, sorry, yes my lord, I’ll bring it in a moment,” Ragnar said, the words tumbling out in a stuttering rush. He bowed low to Loki before scurrying back into the tent.
“He’s not normally this—servile, is he?” I asked quietly.
“No,” Loki said, frowning. “In fact, he’s usually—or previously was—my strongest opponent.”
“I was afraid of that,” I said. “It’s… not a good sign. It means that the geas is probably hooked into a very deep level of his aura, to a core of obedience.” I sighed as Ragnar emerged from the tent, with two steaming goblets balanced precariously on a golden tray. “I hope we can preserve his mind.”
Ragnar eyed me suspiciously as he approached, and extended the tray like a shield between us as I took a cup. When he turned to Loki he bowed again, holding the tray up like an offering, and didn’t straighten when the Jotun accepted the other goblet.
“Please, stand up, my friend.” Loki sipped the drink and grimaced, then changed it to a pleasant smile as Ragnar unbent, clutching the tray in both hands. I sniffed my drink and decided to set it down and possibly tip the cup over at the first opportunity. I wasn’t sure how it was possible to ruin mulled cider, but Ragnar had evidently managed it.
“Would my lord care to, to sit down, I can provide refreshments—”
“I think we should get to work right away,” I said. “Do you have a bed in your tent, Ragnar? Could you bring it out for us?”
“… my lord?” the Aesir said, looking at Loki.
“Please do.” Loki nodded in the direction of the tent, and Ragnar scrambled away.
“We’re going to have to do this with him unconscious,” I murmured. “He’s in no state to handle the work we’ll need to do awake.”
“Agreed,” Loki said, as we watched Ragnar push a floating sleep platform out into the cavern. “Let me handle this.”
I nodded and faded back into the shadows, pouring the failed cider out behind a rock as I listened to Loki’s soothing, coaxing voice. There was a brief interval of silence before he called me back out to where Ragnar was settled peacefully on the hovering cushions.
Neither of us spoke for several long minutes while we watched the sleeping Aesir. With his conscious feelings and reactions muted, I could clearly see the geas—a webwork of fine black threads that extended deep into his aetheric field. The complexity of it was daunting, and I realized I was hesitating just as Loki took a deep breath.
“I’ll start raising a lattice,” he said, looking up at me. “We’ll probably need to pull his entire aura off his body.” He raised his hands and began building the aetheric framework that we would use to tether strands as we worked to untangle the massive knot of the geas.
“And while you’re doing that, I’ll slip into something a little more comfortable.” I caught the quick stutter of Loki’s magic and smirked as I stepped back. “It’ll be easier to work in my natural form, without having to maintain any illusions or shape-patterns.” He’d already recovered his composure, and only nodded in response.
I admit I was mildly piqued by his lack of reaction. I was also somewhat nervous about the task to come, which was making me restless and twitchy. I decided to show off a bit in my transformation, while also going through a meditation designed to help ground me in my native form. At first, I was pleased to notice by the taste of his aura that he was watching me, but as I continued the exercise of the meditation I became distracted in the enjoyment of returning to my natural shape.
Finally I sat up on my haunches, giving my neck one last stretch and shake, and feeling more comfortable than I had in days. I opened my eyes to see Loki staring at me wide-eyed over the completed lattice. I stared back, my scales prickling in the current of tension that coursed between us, and realized that we were both experiencing mild shapeshifter resonance. It was weak, due to him being pattern-locked, and I wondered if he had ever felt it before, or even knew what it was. Green tendrils reached over and through the lattice towards me.
“I, ah. I’ve finished the frame,” he said, clearing his throat as he glanced back to the structure of aetheric lines.
“Good,” I said, then paused, floundering a bit as I tried to think of something else to say. I closed my eyes, letting myself relax back into the peace of experiencing my true form, then looked up at him with a smirk. “You’re not intimidated by working across from a dragon, are you?” I asked in a light tone.
Loki replied with a smirk of his own. “I’ve done aetheric work almost as complicated as this while under attack by demons in Muspelheim,” he said dryly. I was both disappointed and relived to feel the tension created by the resonance draining out between us. “Let’s lift his aura up into the framework and see what needs to be done.”