1. The Master #4
I recounted the tale as I knew it, that if the builder who owned the workhorse had finished a fortress for the gods by a certain time, he’d get the sun, the moon, and the goddess Freya’s hand in marriage.
Loki’s ruse as a mare was a worthy effort to prevent having to keep up their end of the bargain when the builder was about to win.
It had also ended with him birthing Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse that became Odin’s favorite, so I had to ask, “Is it really all true?”
“Which part? That I made such a fetching mare that I absolutely had to be bred?” He waggled an eyebrow at me with no shame at the admission. “Why, I love that galloping baby boy of mine like all my monstrous children. You know their stories too, I take it?”
“I… suppose. Most, I’d imagine. At least as well as anyone these days.”
“And with no fear of cursing us out!”
The dread in me blossomed again. “ Should I fear?” Was Loki leading me to the other end of the bridge just to push me off it, sending me plummeting over its edge, falling endlessly toward Midgard?
“Oli, my dear boy,” he said, resting his head on my shoulder as he brought us to a stop just beneath the floating watchtower, “cursing each other is a daily activity among the gods! We can hardly be upset when a mortal curses us. We need someone unafraid, you see. Someone willing to fuck on our altars and smear our good names.”
He had clearly seen and heard everything I’d done to defile that stone.
“But… we mainly need someone willing to fuck. Allow me to explain.”
Loki seized me by my other arm and spun me back toward Asgard. He waved a hand in front of us in a grand arch like wiping away the current view, and when he did, the view did indeed change. The city had been replaced by a version of itself on fire.
I tried to stumble away, but Loki held me fast. Even the sky had changed, blacked out like there was no sun, no moon, no stars.
I could smell the smoldering of the ashes as war raged, see battles spilling into the streets between all manner of god and creature.
It was pandemonium, utter chaos, like some nightmare depiction of the bloodiest of slaughters.
Loki waved his hand again, and the city returned to peaceful brilliance.
“That was about the time when your people first began turning their backs on their belief of us.” He held me close about the waist too tightly to feel like comfort.
“It was Ragnarok, the end of days, end of everything, and suddenly, for many of you, gods seemed a silly thing to believe in when one God was being touted as superior by other nations, one without our… complicated history of horse fucking and monster bearing. Sounds boring to me!”
Loki released me finally and patted my shoulder as if in apology for the tight hold.
“He has his own complicated history, believe me. But as we slaughtered each other, we brought about our own end to the age of Aesir, Vanir, Jotun, and the lot, and you lost any reason to care if we existed.”
“But you’re alive,” I stated the obvious. “If Ragnarok happened—” I stopped myself before finishing, for the stories were clear on that too.
“We were always meant to come back,” Loki confirmed.
“We’re gods . But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an end for us.
” His seemingly constant grin flickered as he pivoted in front of me, the one side of his face still shadowed by the flow of his hair.
“We are not who we once were. We too must move on to our next stage of existence, apart from mortals, separated from Midgard forever, and lessened because of it without you. Belief makes gods stronger. Not even you believed, Oli, and at least you still know our stories.”
I glanced down the length of the bridge toward Midgard again. “But the bridge still goes there, doesn’t it? And you were able to snatch me.”
“For now. You think the bridge looks as though it fades away because it is too far for mortal eyes to perceive? That is somewhat true, but it fades for real and will eventually no longer reach Midgard at all. Soon, there will be no travel to or from there unless as a spirit, once the last of our altars is left unattended, and our stories told only as myth. It’s fucking depressing , is what it is! ”
His somber tone had changed to lively again, like this was all some grand joke. Maybe it was, but in addition to the mischief in his expression, I swore I saw some other emotion cross his face too quickly for me to register.
“That’s where you come in. See, technically, Ragnarok was my fault.
” Loki said it to the side of one hand like sharing a secret everyone knew.
“I mean, sure, we’d all known the prophecies for ages and how I was intended to kick things off by killing Balder, but I didn’t actually mean for him to die.
I just thought it’d be a bit of fun! It’s like when someone tells you explicitly not to do something, and all you can think about is doing it. ”
I stared at him. “Something children do.”
Loki laughed. “There’s that lack of fear we need!
I might actually like you a little. Some of the others aren’t as pleasant of company as I am, so you’re going to need that courage.
To sum up, the female gods? With this change, their loss of power, the intent for us to live out new lives in seeming peace or within the halls of Valhalla, blah, blah, blah—handling it absolutely flawlessly. Unshakeable, those women!
“The men? Taking it a bit harder. Stubborn lot. Odin won’t even let me cross back into the city. Which, honestly, is taking the grudge too far. They’ve forgiven me for worse! Well, maybe not worse, but enough individual times to count for one especially bad time. Don’t you agree?”
“Hold on.” I raised a hand to stop Loki because I still didn’t understand. “ Where do I come in? You want my… help? With what? Cheering up the male gods so they go into retirement happy?”
“Precisely!” Loki smacked my shoulder again. “You’ve got it. And having seen you in action, I know you’re up for it.”
“Wait, you…” It was then I remembered what else Loki had said.
We mainly need someone willing to fuck.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snarled.
I didn’t even care anymore if he turned me into some terrible creature or chucked me off the rainbow bridge.
It was all the same! It was always the same.
I was something to be used, and nothing more.
But no. No . I would not lie down and take this anymore, just to be tossed aside when I was no longer wanted or needed or worth a damn to anyone.
Sure, whatever the gods might do to me might be worse than punishment from the family that owned me, but… would it really be? Could anything be worse than being treated like property? If the gods were finally intervening in my life, and this was the make of it, then…
“Fuck you,” I spat. “No. Find someone else and send me back home to my miserable, and apparently gods -given existence.”
Loki teetered backward on his heels from my bellow.
Then he laughed again.
“Well done! I get why it has to be you. See, the gods don’t need some wanton worshiper licking their boots. They need a good swift kick in the rear! And, in some cases, maybe something else in the rear. Or to fill up yours? Who’s to say?”
“I refuse—”
“But! I am not asking of a humble thrall as a powerful and, admittedly, beloved Jotun. You already balk at what a thrall is supposed to be, given your beauty. Your wit. Your nerve. Come now, wouldn’t you like to prove the gods wrong about mortals deserving the class they’re born into?
Wouldn’t you like to be more than a slave?
Be a savior, a sage, a courtesan like no other, who is so wanted, you bring even the gods to their knees? ”
He waved a hand at me, and I felt the change before I looked down and saw it.
My clothing had transformed. It was similar to before—trousers, tunic, belt—even in the same colors, with the tunic blue and its trim a pale tan, only now, the quality of the fabrics and leather, the workmanship of it all, the embellishments and stitching, was far finer than a thrall would wear.
“Do that, Oli, succeed in pleasing all whom I send you to, and you will not leave here a thrall any longer. You will be the last thrall of Asgard to ever walk its halls—and beyond. Because I will make you free.”
I looked at Loki with a start. “One might call it foolish to accept any offer from the trickster god.”
“Trickster? Is that my reputation on Midgard? How simplistic! I prefer mischief maker, thank you. Because I assure you, Oli, I am a delight.”
“You literally admitted to starting Ragnarok for the fun of it .”
“That was destiny! I figured I should at least enjoy myself if we were all doomed anyway. Is it really fair to blame someone for what’s fated?” Something wavered across his face as he said that, but it was gone just as quickly.
“Can I get any guarantee you will keep up your end of the bargain? You did just admit to the story where you tricked your way out of a bargain with a builder.”
“ Fucked my way out of it,” Loki said, as if it rude to not include that part. “And absolutely. I’m glad you asked. A god’s oath.” He extended a hand to me.
“Your word isn’t good enough.”
“ Mystically binding. Go on.”
There were nerves in my belly, anxious and bubbling, but I couldn’t say if it was fear or dread anymore. If there was any chance at changing my fate, I had to take it.
I clasped Loki’s forearm, and he curled his long fingers around mine.
One of the snakes embroidered on his sleeve came to life, still as stitching, but as if alive, moving across the fabric from his sleeve to mine.
“If I be lying,” he said, while the stitching glowed and then went dormant again as part of my new clothes, “that snake will come back tenfold upon me, and the Midgard Serpent will swallow me whole.”
“Truly? The serpent lives too?” Jormungandr, a giant serpent, large enough to encircle the world, and another of Loki’s monstrous children.
“We all do, born anew.”
“Even Odin, you said? I thought he was never meant to come back.”
“Says who? Maybe not as he was. But then none of us are only what we were or what you see.” Loki released me, and I stared at the unmoving snake. This would have to be enough to trust that the trickster god would make good on his word.
A free man. Could I really be that? And all from bedding… the All Father himself?
“I’m not sending you to Odin first,” Loki said, as if plucking the thought from my mind. “No, we wouldn’t want to start with him. First! You are going there.”
He pointed up .
I looked, remembering we stood beneath the floating watchtower, with no discernable way to reach it.
“Um, how?”
“Oh! Forgive me.” Loki snapped his fingers, and a new part of the rainbow bridge branched off the main road as an arched pathway to the floating hall.
“To our watchman! He sees all, so he is expecting you, though not all will be. I owe it to him to be the first since, well, we did kill each other during that mess.” He waved his hand back toward Asgard.
In the stories, Loki’s battle during Ragnarok was with…
The floating watchtower was Himinbjorg.
“The Hall of Heimdall,” I said.
“More like a tall cottage.” Loki shrugged. It was smaller than most of the halls I’d seen in the city. “Before Ragnarok, though, it was filled with celebration.”
“Not anymore?”
“No. Now, Heimdall is no longer needed to be on the lookout for our end of days. Those days are here. He seeks something else.” Loki’s eyes traveled down my body, so quickly, just a flick of his lids and flutter of his lashes, that I almost missed it.
It made me wonder—what did he seek? Would he indulge in my body too, like the others?
And why did that appeal to me so much?
He was handsome. Pretty even. Lithe. Alluring. Terrifying, yes, but enchanting all the same. The stories of the gods spoke of them as being the best of us. Better in appearance. Ability. Virility.
I supposed lying with gods didn’t have to be all bad. Might even be fun.
“What will be expected of me?” I asked, gazing up the rainbow trail.
“He’ll let you know.”
When I turned my head to look at Loki again, he was gone.
Of course he was.
But if this was to be my fate, best to get to it. I had to believe, had to hope, had to… pray that Loki followed through with my reward.
Returning my attention to the hall in the sky floating upon clouds, I began my ascent.
Heimdall awaited.