Stables
Two blessedly uneventful days passed, of conferences and subdued social engagements. The third day was agreed upon by the negotiation team to be a rest day. As we approached the entrance to our rooms, I was as unsurprised as everyone else when Loki’s aetheric tracer invited me to accompany him the next morning. Malalik sternly instructed me not to get injured again and Aizerue gave me a rather knowing smirk. I sent a message back with my acceptance of the invitation, then spent the evening alternately continuing my tutoring by Laharu to retain the information I’d been given about pattern weaving, and more or less gently teased by the other guards.
The others had decided to spend the day taking a leisurely tour of the city of Asgard with a pair of Aesir diplomats as their guides. After breakfast, we opened the doors to find Loki, the two diplomats, and a group of palace guards, one assigned to accompany each of us Niddroghn. I glanced at the Jotun, but he seemed unconcerned about the escort. It appeared that our trip today was not to be kept secret.
The Aesir diplomats came into the suite for some preliminary conversation and diplomacy, while Loki led me to a nearby dock, where a skybarge was waiting with another guard as the pilot. After giving brief directions, he relaxed into a padded seat on one side, and gestured for me to sit next to him. The guards remained standing, scanning the barge and surroundings with slow, practiced gazes.
“Nice outfit you’ve chosen,” he said with a smile and a small seated bow as I sat down.
I raised an eyebrow at him. I knew he could see through the illusion of casual clothes I’d woven to cover my new suit of armor. “Without knowing what you had in mind for the day, I thought I’d go with something simple and potentially adaptable,” I replied, looking over the long black leather coat he was wearing. “I hope it’s suitable.”
“It will be fine,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“So… where are we going?” I asked. A moment later, the skybarge docked again and came to a stop.
“We’re already there.”
The dock was in front of a tall, high-arched building that stood in the shadow of the palace itself. Though space seemed to be at a premium in the city of Asgard, there was the impression of open fields around and behind it, bordered with huge, ancient trees and carefully tended high bushes. As I stepped out of the skybarge my nostrils flared, catching the nearby scents. “I’m going to meet your friend, Svadilfari,” I guessed.
The guard who had accompanied us from the palace followed as we approached the large entranceway. “Indeed,” Loki said, smiling at me. “I thought it would make a nice change of pace for both of us, and it’s been a while since I’ve visited him myself. And I have to admit, I’m looking forward to seeing if you can ride a horse after all—when you’re sober, that is.”
The hall we entered was tall, airy, and immaculately clean. I traced several complex webs of aetheric patterns carefully designed and maintained to keep it that way, and couldn’t suppress a quiet snort that the Aesir who refused to use simple communication devices would instead put so much energy into making their stables smell nice. Loki glanced at me and nodded. “I thought you’d catch that,” he said quietly.
Aesir bustled around the hall. Most were dressed in what I guessed was the livery uniform of the stable, but many seemed to be nobles as well, and a few had servants of their own. All stepped aside and bowed to Loki as we passed, with a sense of reverent respect that I hadn’t seen much of in the palace itself. He accepted the gestures with polite nods, and occasionally a few words of greeting to those he recognized, who were stablehands more often than not. His aura rippled with reddish-gold waves, which intensified as he approached the half-open door of a stable decorated with the golden crest of the royal family.
“Svadi,” he said quietly, looking into the stable. There was the sound of heavy hoofsteps, and then the black head of a large horse emerged, snuffling at the Jotun. Loki leaned his head against the horse’s nose, rubbing the sides of its muzzle, with an expression of pure, unfeigned delight. His aura blazed in a flare of gold and crimson so bright that I had to dim my aetheric vision.
“Sigynazor, this is Svadilfari,” he said, turning to me and grinning. “Svadi has been my friend for many years, and has proven a trustworthy companion during some dangerous adventures.” I pressed my fist to my chest and bowed. “Svadilfari, this is Sigynazor, who is a dragon but who promises not to eat you.” I shot him a mock-offended look, and he winked at me. “Sigyn has never ridden, so I’m going to get zir a sedate mount to learn. No tricks from you today, Svadi.”
I had no idea if the horse was agreeing or not as he nudged Loki’s head and made a whuffling sound. Suddenly he tossed his head out of the Jotun’s grip and turned to look at the entrance, his ears perking. There was the sound of shuffling and scattered whinnies from the other stables. A few moments later we could all hear what had disturbed the horses—a high, whistling sound that grew increasingly louder, then ended with a heavy thump, and a shout that echoed through the building. “Loki!”
My guide winced, then looked up at me. “It seems that my brother has returned,” he said expressionlessly, “and wishes to speak with me. If you will excuse me.” He patted the horse’s head again before stalking off down the hallway. The guard glanced between Loki and myself, clearly uncertain. “Come on,” I said, following Loki out of the stables.
Thor was standing with his cape billowing dramatically in the middle of the wide thoroughfare outside. Sif stood next to him, her expression set and angry. The air around him crackled with ozone. Stablehands were leading the few horses that had been out front back into the building at a trot. Loki seemed perfectly calm as he approached his brother. I paused in the entranceway, glancing around at the dozens of Aesir passerby who had stopped to watch the scene, then turned to the guard beside me. “If you have any way of calling for reinforcements, I think they’ll be needed,” I murmured. He nodded, activating a device on his wrist and speaking into it urgently. I rolled my eyes at the evidence of supposedly forbidden technology, then looked back at the confrontation outside.
“Loki!” Thor bellowed again.
“There’s no need to shout, brother, I’m right here,” Loki replied. He stopped a few yards away from Thor and folded his arms. “Now, what is all this fuss about?”
“You know damn well, you traitorous viper.” Thor leveled his hammer at Loki. “While I’m off on a fool’s errand to prove the supposed innocence of your reptile friends, you used the opportunity to try to remove me from your path to the throne!”
“Just for the sake of argument, how did I do that, exactly?”
“You informed the dragons of where I was,” Thor snarled, “and they sent one of their kind to attack me! Fandarel was almost killed. The rest of us barely escaped with our lives!”
“I would have thought you were a match for any dragon all by yourself, much less accompanied by your warriors,” Loki said.
“We would have been, if the dragon were not a powerful sorcerer and surrounded by Marauders with siege weapons,” Sif replied. “They had weapons to counter each of our own—they knew our fighting tactics suspiciously well.”
“And when my companions were trapped, the dragon came after me.” Thor looked like he wanted to spit. “It created a wall of force around Mjolnir, preventing me from using much of its power. A coward’s trick, but effective enough.”
“Well, your theory that I was responsible for this is flattering, but flawed.” I could hear the smirk in Loki’s voice. “I had no idea where you were, and no way of finding out. I don’t even know what realm this happened on.”
“Heimdall would have known, and it would be easy enough for you to find out from him!”
Loki looked at Sif. “Did you ask Heimdall if I had done any such thing?”
“Well… no,” she admitted.
“You’d have fooled him as well, with your tricks and illusions,” Thor said.
“I think you overestimate what I can do with my tricks and illusions,” Loki said carefully. “Thor, stop and think about this a moment.”
“I have no need to stop and think, I saw it myself!” Now Thor glared and pointed his hammer at me. “Enough of your lies! I see that you have one of your dragon friends with you, as always. I challenge it to combat, to prove the truth of my accusations!”
“Thor, you can’t—” Sif put a hand on his arm, but he shook her off.
“I invoke the ancient right of the Aesir, to trial by combat!” Swirling, angry clouds were quickly forming overhead, and thunder punctuated his demand. “This will be decided here and now!”
“The dragon can’t fight you,” Loki said, moving to stand between us. “It would create a diplomatic incident. You remember that, don’t you? Diplomacy?” His voice betrayed his frustration with the situation.
“Then I will fight you instead.” Thor grinned, a strange, unhinged expression. “If you want the throne so badly as to send assassins to kill me for it, you can try and take it from me now!”
A troop of guards had arrived and surrounded the scene of the confrontation, trying to push the onlookers away. Loki took a few steps back, holding his hands up, while Sif tugged on Thor’s arm again, talking to him urgently. I saw Loki weave a quick aetheric dart and flick it in my direction. In my ear, his voice said quietly, “No matter what happens, stay out of this. You must not fight him.” I growled under my breath as Thor shoved Sif aside, sending her staggering several paces away.
“I will not fight you, brother!” Loki shouted, backing away further, his hands still up. “Thor, this is madness!”
“Enough of your lies!” Thor launched himself at Loki, hammer first. Loki leaped out of the way as the Aesir crashed into a wall, sending rubble flying. There were shouts and a few screams from the crowd of watchers, and they finally began responding to the guards’ attempts to clear the area.
“Thor, stop!” Sif launched herself through the air on her spear and landed on Thor’s back, in a futile effort to hold him down.
“Has he clouded your mind, too?” Thor sounded almost regretful as he threw her off, then turned and focused on Loki again. “Must you take all my friends?” A bolt of lightning speared out from his hammer and split one of the ancient oak trees lining the street when Loki dodged aside, sending jagged chunks of wood spinning towards the onlookers. I grabbed a bundle of aetheric threads and threw a hasty ward between the crowd and the debris. It wouldn’t have stood up against a blast from Thor’s hammer, or really any actual assault, but it was enough to deflect the splinters.
“We have to get him away from the crowd!” I shouted, as Loki tumbled aside from another blast of crumbled masonry.
“I’m open to suggestions!” Sif was now standing between him and Thor, arms spread, still trying to convince the Aesir to stop attacking.
Sighing as I thought about the lecture Malalik would give me, I disintegrated my armor, using energy from it and from the surrounding aether to shift into a larger version of my natural form. “Shield me!” I called as I leapt towards them. Sure enough, the sudden appearance of a large dragon in the combat had immediately caught Thor’s attention. Lightning surged and flared around me, pushed aside rather than stopped completely by Loki’s shield. I paused long enough to grab him in one claw and Sif in the other, then channeled some of the energy from Thor’s next attack into getting the three of us airborne.
“To the palace!” Loki said. I could feel him working on the shield, trying to repair and reinforce it against Thor’s constant assaults.
I was fervently glad that the stables were so close by. Still, it took more energy than I had readily available to fly there in my enlarged form while carrying two passengers. My attention was concentrated on channeling the aetheric threads around us, bending them to my use, and on getting us to the open balcony I had fixed as my goal, so I was taken completely by surprise when Sif shouted “He’s above us!” A tremendous blow hit Loki’s shield, and I nearly lost my grasp on the other two as I flapped desperately to keep aloft.
Flying over me, Thor focused his attacks down in trying to force me to land, while Loki struggled to shield us from the assault. With one last burst of effort I flung myself into the palace through the wide archway, and the three of us went tumbling across the hall.
Dizzy and disoriented, I tried to stand, but was only able to get my forelegs under me. Loki wasn’t in much better shape, kneeling on the floor as he tried to rebuild his ward. Thor landed with practiced grace in front of us. “I’ll crush two serpents with one blow,” he snarled, raising his hammer. There was a blur of motion as he was knocked aside and crashed to the floor with Sif crouching on his back again, holding her spear across the back of his neck. His hammer went sliding across the floor until it was stopped abruptly under Odin’s boot. The king held Gungnir upright beside him, and as the hammer entered the spear’s sphere of influence I saw it locked down somehow, unable to return to Thor’s urgently gesturing hand.
I slumped to the floor as a clatter of footsteps echoed through the room, releasing the energy I’d been using and shrinking back to the correct size of my birth form. Thor’s angry shouts were drowned out by the palace guards as they surrounded and separated us.