The Gospel of Loki (6 page)

‘I’m sorry. No deal.’

‘You’ll regret it. One day, Lord Surt will leave his realm to purge the Worlds of you and your kind. You people are going to
need
stone walls around you, when the time comes.’

Odin shook his head. ‘No deal.’

A hubbub of voices ensued. Freyja was wailing; Thor was arguing; Heimdall was gnashing his golden teeth. Some of the lesser goddesses seemed keen to keep the debate alive: the man had a point; without a doubt, Asgard needed defences. The recent attacks by the Ice Folk and Rock Folk had been proof enough of this. They’d been relatively disorganized until now, but with Gullveig-Heid still out there, stirring unrest and selling her runes to the highest bidder, they would soon possess the skills to pose an increasingly serious threat. After that, all it would take was a General with a basic knowledge of strategy, and the gods would be in deep trouble.

Finally I took pity on them. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

Twenty-three pairs of eyes, plus one, turned to look at Yours Truly. We sent the builder to see to his horse, and I explained the plan in private.

‘We shouldn’t dismiss this idea,’ I said, ‘just because the initial estimate seems a little unreasonable.’

‘Unreasonable!’
Freyja shrieked. ‘To sell me into marriage with a . . . with a
labourer
!’

I shrugged. ‘We need stone walls,’ I said. ‘And so we need to agree to his terms.’

Freyja burst into noisy tears.

I passed her my handkerchief. ‘I said we need to agree with his
terms
. Actually paying his
price
remains an entirely different
matter.’

Heimdall gave me a scornful look. ‘We can’t renege on a deal. We’re gods. We’re bound by our word. We’d have to pay.’

‘Who says we renege?’ I grinned. ‘We just make sure that the terms we set are impossible for him to fulfil.’

‘You don’t mean we should
cheat
?’ said Balder, opening his blue eyes very wide.

I grinned. ‘Just think of it as maximizing our winning potential.’

Odin thought about this for a while. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Six months. From the first day of winter to the first day of summer. Not a day more. No extra help. And then, when he fails to finish, we declare the contract null and void, and we’ve got at least half of our fortress built for free, without a care in the Nine Worlds.’

The gods exchanged glances. Heimdall shrugged. Even Freyja looked impressed.

I shot a grin at the Old Man. ‘Isn’t this why you brought me here? To come up with solutions?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then trust me,’ I said. ‘I won’t let you down.’

‘You’d better not,’ said Odin.

After that, all I had to do was present my wholly unreasonable offer to the builder. He took it rather well, I thought. Perhaps I’d underestimated his intelligence. He listened to our terms, shook his head, then looked at the Goddess of Desire.

‘I’d be cutting my own throat,’ he said. ‘But gods, for a prize like that . . . I’ll take your offer.’ He spat in his hand, ready to shake with the Old Man.

‘Let’s make sure we’ve got this straight,’ I said. ‘Six months. Not a day more. And no sneaky sub-contracting, either. You do the job yourself, right? Alone and single-handed.’

The labourer nodded. ‘Just me and my horse. Good old
Svadilfari.’ He patted the flank of the big black horse that had carried him over Bif-rost. Quite a nice-looking horse, I thought, but nothing out of the ordinary.

‘It’s a deal,’ I told him.

We shook. The race against time had begun.

LESSON 6

Pony and Trap

Never trust a quadruped.

Lokabrenna

T
HE NEXT DAY AT DAWN
, the job began. First, the dragging of fallen masonry; then the quarrying of new stone. The horse, Svadilfari, was exceptionally strong, and by the end of the first month he and his master had accumulated more than enough to begin.

Then came the placing of stone blocks; once more aided by his horse, the mason was able to hoist them to a great height. One by one, the wooden halls of Asgard were remade in stone, with strong, round arches, massive lintels, walls of granite so full of mica that they shone like steel in the sun. There were courtyards paved in stone, turrets, parapets, stairways. The work progressed with an eerie speed that the gods viewed at first with amazement, then, as winter deepened, with dread. Even I began to feel a little nervous as the walls of Asgard grew; most builders underestimate the time it takes to finish a job; in this case it looked as if six months might have been over-generous.

But the long winter was on our side; snow began to fall in drifts. Still the mason and his horse went on dragging stone up from the plain. Gales and snowstorms and biting cold seemed
to have no effect on them; too late, we started to suspect that the mason and his horse were not everything they seemed to be.

Months passed with dizzying speed. The plain of Ida began to thaw. In Idun’s garden, snowdrops bloomed. Birds sang with sickening regularity. And day by day, Asgard’s walls grew bigger and more impressive.

Spring approached and, unfairly, all the gods blamed
me
for the fact that the work was getting on so fast. Freyja was especially scathing, pointing out to all her friends that
this
was why you should never trust a demon, and even suggesting that I might be in league with the stonemason, as part of a treacherous plan by Surt to take back the fire of the Sun and the Moon and to plunge the Worlds into darkness.

Balder took the moral high ground and said that folk should give me a chance, whilst assuming that hurt-puppy look of his and asking me if I didn’t feel
just a little bit
responsible?

Others were less delicate in pointing out my guilt. No one used actual violence – Odin had made his orders plain – but there was a good deal of sneering and spitting whenever I happened to be around, and even the General, whose people were giving him serious aggravation about his new brother-in-blood and his reasons for adopting me, started to look at me differently, the light of calculation in his one blue eye.

Well, I wasn’t completely naïve. I knew the Old Man needed to show his authority. There was no point in having an impregnable wall around the Sky Citadel if there was rebellion within. Heimdall was especially combative (besides which, he hated me), and I knew that if Odin showed weakness, then Goldie would be there to take his place as fast as thrice-greased lightning.

‘You’re going to have to make a stand,’ I told him, as the deadline approached. ‘Call a meeting of the gods. You have to assert some discipline. If you show weakness now, you’ll never get your people back again.’

To do him justice, the Old Man knew exactly where I was
coming from. Which made me suspect that perhaps he’d been having exactly the same unquiet thoughts. What made mine less so was the fact that I already had a plan, which I’d been keeping under wraps for maximum dramatic effect. I prepared for a killer performance.

So, on the eve of winter’s last day, the Old Man called his people to an emergency council meeting. The outer wall was almost complete – only the giant gateway remained half built, a massive arch of raw grey stone. One more trip to the quarry would be enough to finish the job, after which the mason could claim the reward I’d promised him.

That evening, the gods and goddesses all assembled in Odin’s hall. No one wanted to sit near me (except for Balder, whose sympathy was almost as bad as their mistrust), and I felt a little hurt that their faith in me had been so easily lost.

I don’t wish to brag, but really, folks, the day that I don’t have a plan is the day Hel freezes over. Still, it had to be done in a way that gave Odin back his authority. I knew I was never going to be anything but an outsider in this camp, but as long as Odin was on my side, I was safe. I knew where I stood.

The meeting began – in Odin’s new hall – and all the gods had plenty to say. The Old Man let them vent for a while, watching through his living eye. The atmosphere darkened progressively as Thor clenched his hairy fists and growled and one by one, my fickle new friends turned their vengeful gaze on me.

‘This never would have happened,’ said Frey, ‘if
you
hadn’t listened to Loki.’

Odin said nothing and did not move, silent on his high throne.

‘We all thought he had a plan,’ Frey went on. ‘Now he’s lost us the Sun and Moon, and Freyja into the bargain.’ He turned on me, drawing his runesword. ‘Well, what do you say? What are we going to do now?’

‘I say make him bleed,’ said Thor, taking a step towards
me.

Odin gave him a look. ‘Hands off. No violence from my people.’

‘What about
my
people?’ said Frey. ‘The Vanir never made any promises.’

‘Too right, we didn’t,’ said Freyja. ‘I second Thor.’

‘Me too,’ said Týr.

At that I started to back away. I could feel the temperature rising. The little hairs at the back of my neck started to prickle with cold sweat.

‘Guys, come on,’ I protested. ‘We all agreed to the deal, right? We
all
agreed to the stonemason’s terms—’

‘But you were the one who told him that he could use his horse,’ Odin said.

I looked up, startled. The General was standing behind me, tall and stern as the World Ash. His hand fell onto my shoulder. He was wearing iron gauntlets. He tightened his grip, and I recalled how deceptively strong he was.

‘Please, it’s not my fault!’ I said.

Freyja, cold as carrion, eyed me with a baleful glare. ‘I want to see him suffer,’ she said. ‘I want to hear him screaming. I’ll wear a necklace made from his teeth when I go walking down the aisle . . .’

Odin’s grasp on my shoulder was really hurting now. I winced. I’d set up this situation myself, but even so I was afraid.

‘I swear, I’ve got a plan!’ I said.

‘You’d better, or you’re toast,’ said Thor.

The gauntleted hand on my shoulder gripped me harder than ever now, forcing me to my knees. I yelped. ‘Please! Give me a chance!’ I said.

For a moment the grip held fast. Then, to my relief, it relaxed.

‘You’ll have your chance,’ said the General. ‘But your plan had better work. Because if it doesn’t, I promise you’ll be in Nine Worlds of hurt.’

I nodded, dry-mouthed. I believed him. What an actor.

Painfully, I got to my feet, rubbing my aching shoulder. ‘I told you I had a plan,’ I said, feeling quite rightly resentful. ‘I promise, by tomorrow night we’ll be in the clear, with nothing to pay, honour and promises intact.’

The gods looked openly cynical, with the exception of Idun, the Healer, whose view of the world was so sunny that she even trusted
me
, and Sigyn, Freyja’s handmaid, who just looked soupier than ever. Everyone else muttered and glared. Even Balder turned away.

Freyja gave me a scornful look. Heimdall showed his golden teeth. And Thor hissed at me as I passed: ‘Till tomorrow, demon boy. Then I’m going to kick your ass.’

I blew him a kiss as I went out. I knew I was in no danger. The day a cowboy builder takes Loki for a ride is the day that pigs fly over the Rainbow Bridge and Lord Surt comes to Asgard for tea and little fairy cakes, wearing a taffeta ballgown and singing mezzo-soprano.

Just saying, in case you had any doubts. Yes, folks. I’m
that
good.

The next day I got up early and high-tailed it from Asgard. Or so people thought – those doubters who didn’t believe I had a plan. Meanwhile, the mason and his horse set off across the grassy plain, now only piebald with patches of snow. Spring was trembling in the air. Birds sang, flowers bloomed, tiny furry animals scampered and scurried in the fields and the black horse Svadilfari seemed to have a gleam in his eye that had been absent all winter.

Above him, Asgard glittered in the sun, its granite walls spackled with mica. It looked truly magnificent; its shining rooftops, turrets, walkways, gardens, sunny balconies. Its twenty-four halls were all different (you notice
I
still didn’t have one); each made to the specifications of the god or goddess who lived there. Odin’s was the largest, of course, towering dizzily over the rest, with his high seat – a kind of crow’s nest –
lost in a ballet of rainbows. The only unfinished section was that massive entrance gateway. Three dozen blocks of stone, no more, remained to quarry and hew into shape – a morning’s work, if that, I thought. No wonder the mason looked cheery, whistling between his teeth as he started to unpack his tools.

But just as his master was about to start work quarrying the last of the stone, the black horse raised his head and neighed. A mare – a very
pretty
mare – was standing on the far side of the quarry. Her mane was long, her flanks were smooth, her eyes were bright and inviting.

She whinnied. Svadilfari replied, then, shaking free of his harness, ignoring his master’s angry commands, he ran to join the pretty mare as she galloped off across the plain.

The mason was furious. He spent all day chasing his horse from one stand of trees to another. No stone at all was quarried that day. Meanwhile, the horse and the little mare celebrated the coming of spring in the usual time-honoured fashion, and the mason tried to complete the gate with ill-fitting pieces of leftover stone.

By nightfall, the horse had still not returned, and the mason was incandescent with rage. He stormed up to Allfather’s hall and demanded to see the General.

‘You must think I’m an idiot,’ he said. ‘
You
sent that mare to entrap my horse.
You
tried to renege on our deal!’

Coolly, Odin shook his head. ‘You failed to complete the building in time. That makes our agreement void. Just chalk it up to experience, and we’ll part on amicable terms.’

The mason looked round at the assembled gods and goddesses, watching him from their shining thrones. His dark eyes narrowed. ‘Someone’s missing,’ he said. ‘Where’s that little redhaired rat with the freaky eyes?’

Odin shrugged. ‘Loki? I have no idea.’

‘Cavorting with my horse, that’s where!’ shouted the mason, clenching his fists. ‘I knew there was something about that
mare! I could tell from its colours! A trick! You’ve tricked me, you two-faced bastards! You slags! You sons and daughters of bitches!’

And at that he lunged at Odin, revealing himself in true Aspect at last as one of the tribe of the Rock Folk; massive, savage and lethal. But Thor was upon him in seconds; a single blow from the Thunderer’s fist was enough to crack the giant’s skull. All Asgard trembled from the blow. But the walls held fast – the mason’s claim had not been an empty one. We had our citadel at last – minus half a gateway – and for a very affordable price.

As for Your Humble Narrator, it was some time before I returned to Asgard, and when I did, I was leading a colt – a rather unusual eight-legged colt of a fetching strawberry hue.

I blew a kiss at Heimdall as I approached the Rainbow Bridge.

The Watchman gave me a sour look. ‘You’re revolting, d’you know that? You seriously gave
birth
to that thing?’

I gave him my most fetching smile. ‘
I
took one for the team,’ I said. ‘I think you’ll find that the others will be more than happy to welcome me back. And as for the General . . .’ I patted the colt. ‘Sleipnir – that’s our little friend’s name – is going to be very useful to him. He has his father’s powers and mine; the power to cross over land or sea; to travel with a foot in each World; to span the sky in a single step, faster than the Sun and Moon.’

Heimdall grunted. ‘Smartass.’

I grinned. Then, taking Sleipnir by the bridle, I stepped onto Bif-rost and crossed home into Asgard.