Turmoil
The moment we returned to Asgard, I felt the aetheric tracer I’d sent after Loki activate, telling me he was somewhere deep within the palace. We were tense and silent during the skybarge ride from the Bifrost. As soon as the doors to our suite closed behind us, I handed my end of the tracer pattern to Scathsa. “Can you expand and stabilize this?” I asked, and e nodded, cupping eir hands and concentrating.
“What’s going on?” Aizerue said sharply, emerging naked from the sauna in Aesir form.
“We just let slip to Loki that we know he’s Jotun, and he reacted—very strangely,” I replied.
“I let it slip, you mean,” Scathsa said bitterly, expanding the trace into a small image that let us view Loki. I glanced through it and was relieved to see that he was walking calmly through the halls of the palace, hands clasped behind his back. His aura churned with agitation, but his expression was perfectly placid and his steps even.
“I thought about it on the ride over, and it really isn’t your fault,” I told Scathsa. E looked up in surprise as I sighed. “Loki said that I’d dropped other hints that we could see the truth. I knew it was delicate, but I hadn’t thought he’d react so strongly.”
“What exactly happened?” Aizerue said with remarkable calm. The three of us sketched out the conversation as we watched Loki through the traced connection. Gradually, a blotch of ugly brownish red spread across the Jotun’s aetheric form. He paused, purple lightning flickering across his aura, then turned and set off in a new direction, his pace more rapid and his expression grim.
“You’ve spent the most time with him,” Daucus said, still watching the image of Loki. “Can’t you tell what those colors in his aura mean?”
“The purple lightning is his conflicting feelings of jealousy and affection for his brother,” I said musingly, “but you’ve probably all figured that out by now. I’ve never seen that red color, though it reminds me of the Aesir emotion of…” I trailed off and looked up at Aizerue, who sat down abruptly.
“Destructive rage,” e said, almost in a whisper.
As we spoke, Loki approached a short hallway with several Aesir guards standing watch. The guards moved as if to challenge him, but Loki snapped something and waved his hands, and the guards returned to their posts. As the Jotun strode towards a large, heavy door, the image gradually faded. It blinked out, and Scathsa raised eir head. “The trace is blocked,” e said. “I could try to find another way in, but it’ll take a while. This is the strongest security I’ve seen anywhere in the palace, technological or aetheric.”
Aizerue was already shaking eir head. “Don’t bother,” e said. “I have an idea of what’s in that room. Keep an eye on the corridor, and let us know as soon as Loki leaves. Malalik, Laharu, Sigyn—combat forms, please.”
I froze, not really believing what seemed to be happening. Malalik only hesitated for a moment before wriggling out of her armor. By the time she was beginning her transformation, Laharu and I were following suit. Each of us had different shapes for fighting, chosen on the basis of personal combat style and aesthetics. Malalik caught my eye and gestured towards the door, and I moved to crouch in front of it, blocking the entrance with the bulk of the bipedal, wingless draconic body I’d used in the fight in the palace corridors, so many days before. Laharu twined his heavily armored and segmented body in loose coils around the chair where Aizerue sat, while Malalik floated up in the form of a huge cloud shark to bump gently against the high ceiling, draping muscular tendrils tipped with barbs around the borders of our group.
Meanwhile, the diplomats had been making their own changes into forms designed for escape, concealment, and defense. Both of them looked the same—tiny versions of their true selves, with articulated armor plates and large wings. If necessary, they could curl up into nearly indestructible balls, or become invisible and escape while we fought to cover their retreat.
Scathsa alone kept eir Aesir form, still concentrating on holding the image in eir hands. As we settled ourselves to wait, e swore quietly. “Odin just entered the hall.” We all stared at the image, willing the Allfather to turn away, but he marched straight down the corridor and waved his spear at the enormous door. The security screening prevented us from seeing what happened clearly, but we all got the impression of the door opening and Odin walking into the room before the door sealed itself behind him.
“Daucus, activate the emergency portal.”
The small dragon looked at Aizerue uncertainly, then nodded. Hie closed hir eyes and concentrated. Aetheric threads began to weave together, glowing and sparking, into a ring that seemed to open from every angle. Power fed into it from Daucus’ personal data pattern, which curled up off hir aetheric foreleg and crumpled, burning out as it was drained to fuel the gate. In a few seconds, the ring was just big enough for the diplomats to pass through, showing a vision of a specially prepared chamber in the Caldera.
“What’s at the end of that hallway, Aizerue?” Scathsa asked hesitantly.
The senior diplomat sighed and looked around at us. “According to our best intelligence, that is the relic chamber of Asgard, where the most ancient and powerful artifacts are housed. We’ve only positively traced a few devices into that room—the Warlock’s Eye, the Tablet of Life, the Casket of Ancient Winters—but our intelligence hints at others. Tyrfing. The Infinity Gauntlet.”
“Weapons,” Malalik said, with a shiver that was echoed by everyone in the room. “Terrible weapons.”
“Now, we wait,” Aizerue said. “And analyze the available data. Sigyn, may we access your memory of what happened directly?”
I couldn’t help flinching, even though I had been expecting the request. Privacy of the mind is nearly sacred to us, which we’ve found is a common theme among successful cultures of telepaths. Showing others the contents of our minds is much like undressing for Aesir—embarrassing, uncomfortably revealing, only done in private or in emergency situations. On top of that, I was feeling increasingly guilty about having slipped up and started this whole mess, which was already seeping into the memory of the event and would be obvious to everybody who saw it. But there was no getting around it; this was most definitely an emergency. I took a deep breath, then lowered my head to Scathsa. “You have my permission,” I said formally, and focused on the memory, opening my mental barriers.
Scathsa’s intrusion was delicate and professional. E isolated the memory and drew it forward in my mind, linking it with another image-bubble for everyone to see. I clenched my jaw, tailtip twitching, as I tried to suppress my humiliation. There was no hiding the affection and even attraction I had developed for the Jotun, as uncomfortably revealing as an erection on a loosely closed male Aesir. I jumped a little as I felt something gently nudge against the back of my neck, but was able to relax a bit as Malalik sent me feelings of empathy, friendship, and peace, rubbing my shoulders with one of her tendrils. Her support helped me calm my emotions.
The diplomats had been watching the scene intently. Suddenly Daucus jerked hir head back. “He didn’t know,” he said.
Aizerue tilted eir own head. “He didn’t know what? That we knew?”
“No, he didn’t know that he was a Jotun!”
Stunned silence followed this announcement. The scene as played back, and this time, Loki’s reactions fell into place. It had never occurred to me, to any of us, that he might have been unaware of his species, but the explanation made perfect sense of his dismay and denial.
“Frigga must have known,” Laharu said, his voice a deep, breathy hiss. “Odin, too. You said they have the Casket of Ancient Winters—they took that from Jotunheim. Did they simply steal a Jotun infant while they were looting?”
“And then raised him as an Aesir,” I said, trying to keep the disgusted snarl out of my own voice. “They must have pattern-locked him as an infant so he’d never learn how to access his natural abilities. They couldn’t suppress his magic, though, so they trained him in it instead, knowing it would tarnish his standing in Asgard society…” The memory being shared with the others flashed back to an earlier conversation, Loki’s frustration at having been told all his life that he was “born to be a king,” but having known for centuries that Thor was Odin’s chosen heir, and had been all along. “Odin kept saying they were both born to be kings. He never said that Thor would be king of Asgard, but Loki was meant to be king of Jotunheim!”
“He couldn’t be king of Jotunheim, though,” Scathsa pointed out. “He’s too small. He’s pattern-locked with Aesir coloring, but that is his birth form he’s locked into. The Jotun would never have accepted him as their king. I’m surprised he survived long enough for Odin to find and abduct him.”
“But with the training he’s gotten,” Aizerue said slowly, “and the full might of Asgard backing him up… Odin was grooming him to take the throne. He was planning on it all along.”
“He might have played off Loki as a half-breed, or even an Aesir who had somehow learned some of the Jotun traits,” Daucus mused. “Or he could simply kill Laufey and install Loki as the regent. What choice would the Jotun have? Raised to affection and loyalty for the ruling family of Asgard, steeped in Aesir customs—and given the Casket of Ancient Winters to keep the peace, because he could use it safely when other Aesir can barely touch the thing.”
“But Loki didn’t know any of this,” I said. “He’s spent his entire life thinking he was meant to rule Asgard—and that’s what he wants, not to be king of what he thinks is a frozen wasteland full of barbarians, a realm he knows almost nothing about and has never even been allowed to visit!” Malalik’s tendril squeezed my shoulders gently, and I realized I’d been roaring by the end of that outburst. I leaned back, concentrating on calming my emotions.
Scathsa interrupted the discussion. “Something’s happening,” e said. We snapped into tense silence as we refocused on the scene in the hallway. Several guards ran into the void at the end of the hallway, to emerge a few moments later, bearing a prone figure on a hovering platform of energy.
“It’s Odin,” Daucus said, giving voice to the shock we all felt. “And Loki walking next to him—has Loki killed him?”
“No… look at Odin’s aura,” Aizerue said. The previously impenetrable, blank mask of white and gold lines that represented Odin’s aetheric signature had changed into a sickly golden glow, churning slowly. “It’s the eldersleep. Older Aesir need to do this sometimes, to renew their energy, though he must have been holding it off for the negotiations. Whatever happened in the vault upset him enough that he lost control.” E looked up at us, eir expression more worried that at any other point of the crisis. “If he is recalled from exile, this may mean… that Thor is now king of Asgard.”
Our image followed the guards as they rushed Odin to his chambers. Frigga had appeared and was speaking with Loki. They stopped in the hallway, letting the guards pass them as Frigga put her hands on her adopted son’s shoulders. Loki shook his head, on the verge of tears, his aura a frenzied storm of muddled colors. She tried to embrace him, but he stiffened and pulled away, still shaking his head. He said something that caused a flash of white-hot pain across her aura, then turned and ran down another corridor, ignoring her calls.
“Daucus,” Aizerue said. We all startled and looked to our leader. “Go through the portal and give a report of the situation. Get the portal reinforced on the other end. We’re going to need to keep it open for a while. Come back when it’s been stabilized.” The tiny drake nodded and darted through the glowing ring, then vanished from sight into the plain stone room beyond.
“Scathsa, drop the images,” e continued. “I need you to focus on hiding this portal as completely as possible. Maintaining such a large power drain might attract Heimdall’s notice even through Loki’s shroud. Can you do that?”
“I can do most of it, but I could use some help manipulating the aetheric threads to flow around it.” Scathsa looked at Laharu. “If we work together, we should be able to keep it hidden for a while, at least.” The stone snake nodded.
“All right—Laharu, Scathsa, keep Aesir shapes. No more clothing; from now on, we wear illusions when we’re in Aesir form, and if they see through it they deserve to get an eyeful of our anatomy.” Aizerue quirked a half-smile as e shifted into eir own Aesir form, and most of us couldn’t help snickering a bit. “Malalik, keep your shape, but stay invisible. Sigyn… back to Aesir form for you. I suspect we’re going to be called for soon, and I’m not willing to go without a guard right now.”
Just as my transformation completed, there was a pounding on the entrance portal. We’d mostly gotten used to the Aesir custom of “knocking,” but this was a much heavier banging than usual. Aizerue stood up, clothed in illusory diplomat’s robes, and nodded to me. I glanced at Scathsa and Laharu, but they’d already covered their work on the portal with a simple illusion of the two of them playing some kind of board game, both in their Aesir forms. Reading for the possibility of an attack, I keyed the door open.
Four tense guards stood in the hallway. “Your presence is demanded in the throne room,” one said to Aizerue, his aura bristling with deep red rage. “Immediately.”
E bowed, walking out of the suite without hesitation. I fell into step behind eir, and the guards surrounded us, setting a brisk pace.