Part 21: Snakes and Staffs

Thoki cursed and threw the King James Bible against the wall where it dented the plaster and slithered to the floor like a brained bird. He’d read it from Genesis to Revelations; he’d also read the Koran and the Torah, and even the Morman book of Moses, but he was no closer to finding what he was looking for.

“I’ll never find it!” he moaned banging his head on the table in despair.

There was a nicker from Slepnir’s direction and Thoki looked at his brother. Slepnir was looking haggard these days from lack of sleep and his current diet of decaying plywood and the living room sofa. Thoki reached out a hand and pet Slepnir’s velvety nose. The horse seemed to calm a little and his ears relaxed for the first time in ages.

                “Your brother’s a clueless moron, you know that,” said Thoki.

                Slepnir’s gave a non-committal toss of his head as if to say, “Yes you are, but there’s no point in getting depressed.”

                Thoki gave a hopeless hollow laugh and glanced at Lor sleeping peacefully on the sofa. He’d been lying there for six days now and while his wounds seemed to have cleared up, the giant was listless and pale. He’d wake up for a few hours, eat and then go to sleep again. It was beginning to worry Thoki, and he was powerless to do anything. Lor was far too big to move, even with Slepnir’s help. Lor had expended the last of his energy just getting here. Now in this fetid, vermin-infested, poisonous apartment, he was slowly losing whatever battle raged inside his massive body.

                Thoki sighed and got to his feet. After trying to rouse Lor from his sleep with little success, he began to fall back into his recent habit of pacing. He prowled through the living room, kicking up dust and insects from the rotting carpet. Slepnir watched him with the mild interest of someone whose only source of entertainment had been counting his legs.  

                “What am I doing?” Thoki muttered. “I’m busy trying to find some stupid place that might not even be on Earth and it doesn’t matter because if I could even figure out where the hell it is I can’t go because my giant can’t move.”

                “Well that does put you in an awkward position, doesn’t it?” said the familiar drawl of a continental gentleman.

                “Hello, Hermes,” said Thoki without even looking around.

                “I’ve brought a friend today,” said Hermes.

                With a heavy sigh, and a depressed acceptance of the death that was to come Thoki looked up.

                Hermes was grinning wickedly. He didn’t have the battle scars on him from his last encounter with Thoki. The last time Thoki had seen him, he was sporting broken ribs, a hurt leg and a crushed nose. Now he looked as fit and dapper as ever in his designer jeans, silk blouse and navy military jacket. Next to him was another olive-skinned aquiline-nosed god. Thoki gazed into a handsome face that was gorgeous almost to the point of freakishness. His full lips, golden eyes, curly blond hair, strong chin— they seemed to be cartoonish on a real face. Thoki felt a hot flush rise to his face which made him furious. He knew exactly who he was looking at. The staff in the god’s hand, a golden scepter with a snake wrapped around it explained everything, including Hermes’s miraculous recovery.

                “Apollo, I presume.”

                “Yes,” said the god in a deep soap-opera voice.

                Good grief; he sounds like an old Superman cartoon, thought Thoki with a frown.

                “To what do I owe this pleasure… and with such an item as that?” Thoki asked, eyeing the staff hungrily.

                “You know what this is?” asked Hermes lightly, his smile widening.

                Thoki nodded. It was the magical Rod of Asclepius—once belonging to Apollo’s son Asclepius, the world’s greatest doctor. It was said to cure all wounds, and in Asclepius’s hands it could bring the dead to life. For that hubris Apollo’s son was sentenced to death by Zeus himself.

                “And you know what it’s capable of?” asked Hermes.

                Again Thoki nodded and his eyes swiveled to look at Lor again. “What do you want?” he asked, his throat suddenly dry.

                “We couldn’t help but notice that your hairy friend over there isn’t doing so well,” said Hermes.

                “He’s just a bit under the weather,” said Thoki beginning to sweat, he had an inkling of what was coming next.

                “Don’t bother lying to me. Apollo is a God of medicine himself, aren’t you brother?”

                Apollo nodded his golden head but said nothing.

                “He’s dying, Thoki,” said Hermes simply.

                Thoki nodded dumbly as he fought the bile in his throat and tried to stay upright.

                “So now he’s out of the way, you can win?” gasped Thoki. “Lor’s down for the count so you come here with your big brother and his magic stick to even the odds.”

                Hermes blinked before regarding Thoki in disappointed bemusement.

                “Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you really just thick?”

                “If I say it’s the latter will you promise not to break my nose again?” moaned Thoki. “Seriously. Why are you here? I guess if you were going to kick my ass you’d have done it by now, but… you know… the trickster tendency to go off on ADD tangents is hard to override.”

                “Fair enough,” said Hermes. “Yes, I fully intend to get my revenge on you… but I’ve been instructed to do otherwise… for the moment…by my associates.  I’m here to offer you a bargain.”

Slepnir’s ears cocked upwards and he raised his head to look at the three of them.

“Go on,” said Thoki. He was nervous. Hermes was the god of diplomats and compromise as well. The bastard could turn on the charm if he had to, and also knew when to press his advantage.

“Apollo here will heal your giant if you swear a solemn oath not to seek Isfat.”

“And if I don’t?” asked Thoki, a cold sweat attacking his neck and the backs of his knees.

“Then your Jotun friend dies… and you’ll be much easier to pick off by yourself,” said Hermes calmly. He fingered his own staff, the caduceus, the double-snake staff of negotiation.

Thoki looked back at his friend. Lor hadn’t stirred through the entire exchange; his shallow breathing and pasty face told Thoki that Hermes spoke the truth.

It’s over, he told himself. There’s nothing left.

The realization came as somewhat of a relief after all this internal conflict. He would never find Isfat now, but now he had other things in front of him. He might even get to get a real life after this. Maybe this promise would silence all those delusions of grandeur and malcontent that screamed at him in the night. He could just be Thoki Lokison, a boring uninteresting short man who dreamed of nothing more ambitious than pancakes with bacon.

“Alright,” he said quietly nodding.

Apollo began his manly stride towards the sofa where Lor lay when Thoki shouted out to him.

“On one condition!” he shouted.

“I make the conditions, brat,” sniffed Hermes.

“It’s just a little thing,” he said.

“This means you don’t try to snuff me out later, got it?”

Hermes tried to look bored, but Thoki saw a flicker of relief behind his olive face. With Lor back in the pink Hermes didn’t relish getting his ass handed to him again by the behemoth.

“It’s a deal. Shake on it,” he added in a low stern voice.

Thoki took a deep gulp of breath and walked towards the outstretched hand smelling of cologne and espresso.

20: Under My Skin

The afternoon sun shone greyly through the grimy window panes of the dilapidated apartment. The other windows were left open to create a mouldy-smelling cross breeze. Thoki was sitting cross-legged on the stained rug examining the seven postcards of the obelisk that Slepnir had given him. The hieroglyphs were faint, the real obelisk being of sedimentary rock and several millennia old. Additionally, the postcards weren’t printed at a resolution where he could read the faded glyphs. Thoki wished he had a powerful magnifying glass to examine them but had to make do with a cracked pair of reading glasses he’d found in a dumpster.

Through squinting eyes, he tried to see through the dots composing the image to the symbols of birds, running water, and plants. He’d then copy the phonetic translation as best as he could onto a sheet of paper and checked them against the other pictures. The multiple images weren’t as helpful as he had hoped. One was shot in such poor lighting that the glyphs were invisible. Of the other postcards, four of them showed the west side. There was one shot of the north side, and the last showed the east and south sides at an angle. It was not ideal, and while he had a very good transcript of the most popular side, the other three were causing him all manner of frustration.

“ARGH!” Thoki cried, flinging the glasses onto the table and jumping to his feet. He massaged his neck and blinked his eyes to get the after-image of print matrix out of his vision.

“This is so stupid!” he shouted, kicking the wall. His foot went completely through the old drywall and left a gaping hole. Out of sheer destructive anger Thoki kicked a few more holes in the wall, a wicked smile creeping across his face as he sent clouds of white plaster into the air and watched the mice and cockroaches scurry to safety. He laughed at their terror and fueled by their terror, he started really laying into the wall, laughing and hooting. He was stopped by the ceiling lamp dropping onto his head. It’s mooring in the flimsy plaster had become cracked and dislodged by Thoki’s rampage.

Thoki picked himself off the floor shaking the broken glass out of his hair and cursing a blue streak.

“Feel better?” asked Lor weakly from his prone position on the couch.

Thoki shot him a dirty look. “Shut up,” he snapped.

“Sorry,” mumbled Lor before drifting off to sleep again.

Thoki felt a stab of guilt as he saw just how badly the giant was doing. Lor hadn’t moved from the couch in over two days. He could barely lift his head to eat the stale food Thoki had scavenged that day. Thoki ran to the 2-gallon jug of sterile water he’d stolen and carefully poured a measure of it into a cracked souvenir mug. He rushed back to Lor and shaking the giant until he stirred, he helped Lor drink.

Slepnir was curled up in a leggy heap on the far side of the living room.

It was obvious to Thoki that Slepnir was only putting up with Lor for Thoki’s sake. The horse had fought enough Jotun to be terrified around the frost giant and try as Thoki might, he couldn’t convince Slepnir that Lor was harmless. Slepnir had instead decided to stay in the corner in a constant state of terror. It had been wearing on the horse for the last few days and he looked exhausted and worn to a frazzle.

Thoki stood on the rotten carpet and surveyed the sleeping giant and his recalcitrant brother. A sudden wave of depression hit him and he ran to the bathroom to spit out the vomit rising in his throat. He caught sight of his haggard face in the mirror. Infrequent meals and sleep had made it lose some of its childish roundness. There were now harsh angles, jutting cheekbones and hollow circles around his eyes. His fair hair was filthy and greasy, making it look more reddish brown than its usual blonde. His cool grey eyes were red-rimmed, making the irises look almost white. Most shockingly, Thoki recognized a different face behind his. It looked like a haggard tired face that been constantly tortured by slow-working poison. He was beginning to see his father Loki lurking under his skin. He backed away from the mirror in shock and the not-Loki in the mirror did the same. He watched as the familiar face broke down in the unfamiliar expression of despair. Large tears rolled down the hollow cheeks, leaving white tracks in the grime and splashing into the sink.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Thoki asked himself. “We’re trapped in this pit while I try to figure out what the key is to an entity that may or may not destroy the universe… I don’t even know why I’m doing this anymore. I was so sure a few months ago… and now… I don’t know.”

The face in the mirror frowned and looked more Loki-ish than ever. It spoke to him in a low whisper. “It’s because you’re trapped in this pit. It’s for all the hardship you’ve suffered and been made to suffer. It’s to show the world that you’re not a doormat anymore. That you’re capable of greater things.”

“Maybe I don’t want that anymore,” Thoki argued. “Maybe what I want is to get a job and a house and a wife and just live my life.”

“In this economy? You got to be joking! Besides that shit is for people with papers and numbers and credit scores — something you’ll never have. Face it. You don’t belong here. You’re just a prisoner here.”

“I don’t have to be. There are people who forge those things. I could get some fake papers and … and then…”

“And then what? You think Eris would want you then? You think she’d be content with a 3 bedroom, 1 ½ bath townhouse? You think she’d be impressed if you had a 9-to-6 job in data entry. You think she’d want… KIDS?”

“Maybe,” said Thoki, but both his warring halves knew it was bullshit. He then brightened up, “Maybe Hnoss—?”

“After you ditched her? I doubt it. Besides, she’s dead now.”

“Is she?”

“Does it matter? You’re never getting Hnoss back, stupid, and Eris doesn’t settle down. Face it. Your only chance of ever getting laid again is if you’re the top dog.”

“It’s not just about getting laid, asshole,” he told himself.
The face in the mirror agreed. “It’s about getting everything else too. Respect, fear, money, power… even love.”

“It won’t get me love,” he sighed.

“It might. Who’s to say?”

“Who’s to say I won’t find it anyway if I were to just forget the whole thing. Maybe Hnoss and Eris aren’t an option, but maybe there’s a nice mortal girl…”

“Who loves tiny men with tiny dicks? Keep dreaming, shorty. Face it. You’re basically fucked in that department. Now if you were rich and powerful….”
“Shut up! Shut up and stop thinking with your penis, dumbass!”

“You’re right. We should be thinking about Isfat instead.”

“WHY? WHY does it matter??” he screamed. “Why do I have to risk my life and the lives of my brother and my friend for something that I don’t even know what it is?!?”

“Because you have to,” he said. “You HAVE to. It’s part of you… it calls to you when you sleep at night. It won’t let you rest. It won’t give you peace until you’ve exhausted every fiber of your being to find it. That’s why.”

The mirror spoke in tandem with him as he said it (as mirrors always do). Both he and the Loki under his skin were in absolute agreement as he said the words. And he knew it was true. It was something beyond his dim comprehension. It sought him. He was powerless against it.

Defeated and twice as depressed as before, he slumped back into the living room and plopped down on the floor before the coffee table. He glanced at the hieroglyphs he’d penciled out and then snatched up the page in a feverish rush. It was like the optical illusion of the old lady. He kept trying to see the young lady’s face but instead kept seeing the old woman. Now at second glance he could see her. The saucy curve of her neck, her eyelashes, her dark hair, she was looking away from him coquettishly laughing at him for not being able to see her before. Everything was clear now. He had been trying to read the glyphs in ancient Egyptian, but it had seemed like gibberish. It was only when he glanced at the phonetic words written in roman letters that he realized the truth. It was a poorly written attempt to mimic words in Ancient Hebrew.

Pulse pounding, he wrote the words again in Hebrew, and came up with this poorly worded phrase,

בראשית היה תוהו.

Thoki reassembled the words properly in his head and heard them again in Anansi’s dark penetrating voice:

“In the beginning, there was void”

Thoki stared at the words. “That bastard, Anansi was giving me a clue… Hebrew text…” Thoki felt an icy pit in his stomach. He was dimly aware of the Hebrew deity that was somehow different from all the other Father gods. He had once thought him akin to Zeus, and Odin and Osiris and all those other big beards in the sky but for some reason He escaped definition. He made Thoki nervous.

“Hey, Lor?” he said.

Lor stirred and mumbled questioningly.

“Where would I find a copy of the Torah?”

“I don’t know,” said Lor.

“Where does one normally keep holy books?” asked Thoki.

“In a place that’s holy… or a place full of books.”

Thoki shuddered at the idea of going into a synagogue. There was only one option left.

“Looks like I’m going to the Library,” he said.

“Just like old times,” said Lor with a smile.

Tragedy In Norway

A lot of my readers are from Norway so I'd like to post that my heart goes out to your country and your people after this terrible tragedy. I fell in love with your country when I was a little girl and it seems unthinkable that such evil could befall a beautiful harmonious land like Norway.

You will be in my prayers.

~Monica Marier

19: Fetch

“I got him,” said Thoki jogging up to Slepnir.  Lor was standing silently behind Thoki. It was hard to tell if he was lost in thought or just lost.

Slepnir shied away from the giant, snorting.

“Of course I don’t expect you to carry him,” said Thoki. He tried to sound reassuring, but really Thoki was disappointed. He had thought that maybe Slepnir had some sort of super-strength that would have solved this problem. Looking at the horse again, however, Thoki realized that there was no way that Lor would even have fit on Slepnir’s back.

“We can just… um… fly… on… er… broomsticks,” he finished lamely.

“Like Harry Potter,” gasped Lor.

Thoki sighed at Lor’s failure to grasp sarcasm.

“Damn it. Looks like we’re walking,” muttered Thoki.  

A bone-splintering howl penetrated the eerie silence and his head shot up in alarm. There was a loud blast and a blistering wind as something exploded and burst into flames knocking Thoki to the pavement.

Standing silhouetted against the light of a burning car was Fenrir.

“…or running. Running is good,” said Thoki, scrambling to get his feet under him.

“I gotcha now, runt!” roared Fenrir.

Slepnir screamed and reared; the whites of his eyes shone in the flames. In one fluid movement, Lor scooped Thoki up and tossed him onto the horse. As soon as his backside hit Slepnir’s flanks the horse’s eight legs became a blur. Thoki looked around to see Lor standing stalk-still against the billowing clouds of illuminated smoke.

“Lor! C’mon!” he shouted.

“I’ll hold him off!” Lor shouted back.

“NO, you moron! I came back to GET you!” Thoki screamed over his shoulder, but Slepnir had gone too far away.  Thoki grunted in frustration before grabbing Slepir’s mane and trying to make him turn 180°. Three of Slepnir’s legs followed suit but the other five wanted to keep going forwards. Thoki hit the pavement, jarring his injured arm and knocking his head on the concrete.

 Slepnir untangled himself and, ears flat against his head, he screamed at Thoki.

“We have to go back!” said Thoki from the ground.

Slepnir pawed the ground menacingly.

“I mean it! Every time Lor and I split up, everything goes wrong! We’re going back!”

The horse snorted and tossed his head.

“Look, you can of dog-meat! I know I can’t fight Fenrir, but I can’t leave Lor to face him alone.”

Slepnir’s head lowered. He looked ready to charge.

“Go ahead! I don’t care! Don’t you get it? I don’t care what anyone does to me anymore! I’ve already been tortured, humiliated and killed. There’s NOTHING anyone can throw at me that will make any difference now.”

Slepnir stepped back a little, his head cocked to the side.

“I dunno about that. Maybe I just don’t know when I’m beat. But I’m not afraid of Fenrir anymore. The worst he can do is kill me… and I’ve been there already.”

 Slepnir shifted between looking forward and looking back, torn in indecision.

“Do what you got to do,” said Thoki.

 Slepnir gave Thoki a sheepish stare before galloping away at full clip.

 “Can’t say I blame you,” sighed Thoki as he picked himself off the ground and started loping back towards Lor. A sudden idea came to him and he changed course towards the police station’s back door.

 “Fenrir might be able to tie me into a pretzel knot… but he’s dumber than a sack of hammers,” Thoki muttered to himself with a thin grin. His heart wasn’t in it. For all his bravado about not being afraid of Fenrir, Thoki knew something he hadn’t told Slepnir — it was all bullshit.

When he came out of the station again, he saw them — two titans locked in mortal combat. Fenrir had let his wolf-side take over and was now biting and clawing at the Jotun in a frenzied fury. Lor’s arms were straining against the wolf’s power, sinews standing out like writhing snakes. Sweat glistened off his ruddy face in the orange light as he withstood Fenrir’s onslaught of blows. He didn’t give one inch of ground, he didn’t cry out, and he didn’t budge, but he wasn’t fighting back either. To do that would have given Fenrir a chance to claw at his stomach or throat, which would have finished him.

He was losing.

Thoki realized it instantly and knew he had only a second to act. He clutched the item he’d fetched from the police station in his sweaty hand.

“HEY, STUPID!” shouted Thoki.

Both Lor and Fenrir stopped fighting for a fraction of a second to look at him, and with an inward groan, Thoki realized that he should have probably been more specific.

 “FENRIR!” he shouted and the wolf’s head grinned at him.

 “Rrrrunt!” he growled through canine incisors. Fenrir couldn’t talk very well in this form. “I’m frough playin’ wif dis Gian’,” he spat. His jaws snapped closed around Lor’s head and with a violent shake, let him sink to the ground. Thoki froze, suddenly unsure of his plan.

“NOW ITF YUR TURN!” he shouted crouching to get a powerful start to his charge at Thoki.

Thoki gulped and held the item aloft as high as he dared.

Fenrir paused ever so slightly.

Thoki squeezed it.

It went, “SQUEAK.”

Fenrir skidded to a halt, starring at the fluffy pink, slightly bedraggled Mr. Babbington in Thoki’s hand.

“You want the toy?” asked Thoki in a bright excited voice.

Fenrir gave an excited whine, while hanging back a little, as if to say, “I would not be averse to having this toy, yes.” His tail betrayed him as it thumped the sidewalk causing large cracks to spread through the concrete.

“You want the toy?” Thoki asked again, waving the pig invitingly.

 Fenrir whined again and lifted a forepaw. The concrete under his wagging tail now had a crater the size of a punch bowl.

 
“Who’s a good wolf?” said Thoki squeezing the pig again.

 A large pink tongue, like a giant hagfish, lolled out of Fenrir’s mouth as he rolled on his back in a show of good will.

“You want it!”

 “Yeah!” shouted Fenrir.

“You want it?”

“YEAH!!!”

 “GO GET IT!!!”  shouted Thoki, and reaching his arm as far back as it would go, threw as hard as he could.

Thoki’s stomach sank as Fenrir launched himself in the air and caught the pig in mid-arc. To his surprise, however, Fenrir trotted back to Thoki and dropped the very wet pig in his hand. He bounced in anticipation.

“AGAIN!” barked Fenrir.

“Kay,” said Thoki wishing he could throw harder. Another idea struck him and he reached his arm back for a second time.

“GO GET IT, FEN!” he shouted. Fenrir followed the projected arc and took off, his claws sending chunks of cement flying as he sped away.

As soon as he was out of sight, Thoki ran to Lor’s side. It didn’t look good. Lor’s face was covered in blood and his breathing was shallow and labored.

“You okay, buddy?” asked Thoki, more out of blind optimism than any real hope.

“I been better,” Lor managed weakly.

“Shit. We have to get out of here before Fenrir gets back. Can you walk?”

“No,” said Lor. Thoki briefly reflected that Lor was the type to say, “I’ll try” or “I can manage.” The fact that he cut through niceties to the bald truth scared him.

Just as Thoki was about to dissolve into hysterics at his hopeless situation, he felt a tug at his sleeve.  He turned in time to get a wet, snotty nuzzle from Slepnir.

“Came back, did you?” he asked sourly.  

Slepnir implied nothing, as he leaned down to let Lor grab his mane. In a few painful movements, they managed to drape Lor over Slepnir’s back and were now making awkward progress down the pavement. They moved as quickly as they dared and their impeded speed drove Thoki nearly insane as he expected any minute for Fenrir to come barreling at them, teeth bared.

“Fenrir gon’ com’ back?” mumbled Lor.

“I hope not.”

“S’been a while. Did you throw farther then?” asked Lor.

Thoki reached behind him and pulled out the plush pig that had been crammed into his belt.

“The only lesson my Dad ever taught me: If you can’t win, don’t play.”

After what seemed like hours (but was in fact 24 minutes), they arrived back at the flat they’d been squatting in. Lor dropped onto the couch that was moldering against the wall. Thoki looked around for something to clean his wounds with. Slepnir stood out of the way began eating a rattan basket.

Lor was already looking better, his Jotun blood made him damn-near impossible to kill, much to Thoki’s relief. It was just as well since there was nothing to treat wounds with around the flat but filthy carpet and a toxic-looking bottle of ancient furniture polish

“Goin’ take a nap for a while,” mumbled Lor.

“That’s fine. Go ahead,” said Thoki with a sigh.

“Sorry everythin’s gone wron’.”

“It… it’s okay. I’m beginning to think this Isfat thing isn’t worth the trouble,” said Thoki with a catch in his voice.  “I just wish… I wish I could have gotten a look at that obelisk.”

As Thoki angrily wiped away an escaped tear he felt warm breath snuffle on his neck. He looked up to see Slepnir with something in his mouth.

“Whatcha got there?” he asked his brother, taking the scrap of paper from him. It was a damp postcard. The address and text blocks were blank, indicating it’d never been used, but turning it over, Thoki stopped dead. On the picture side was a crisp clear photograph of a phallic tower hewn from ancient red sandstone.

“It’s a postcard of the obelisk?” Thoki gasped, laughing in hysterics. “I-I-I can read it! It’s right here!” he stammered. “But it’s just one side of it.”

Six more cards fluttered down from Slepnir’s mouth. They showed the Tower at various other angles and light.

“You did it!” shouted Thoki. He jumped to his feet in feverish excitement and hugged Slepnir’s neck. “YOU DID IT!! You are the BEST freaking brother EVER!!”

 
Slepnir nuzzled his cheek happily.
 
“Where the hell were you keeping those?” Thoki asked in amazement.

18: Frozen Tears

Thoki circled the police station on Slepnir until one fact struck him.

“Why are all the lights out?” he wondered aloud.

Slepnir, of course, didn’t answer but Thoki felt his coarse hair stand up. He whined as if to ask, “can’t you feel it?”

Thoki did feel it. Great gusts of cold air were rising in circles from the building. The icy drafts were punching the warm dry air and causing whirlwinds that buffeted the flying horse. Slepnir was forced to draw back from the darkened edifice. Overhead, there was a rumble of thunder.

“Something’s not right,” said Thoki shivering in his thin cotton shirt. It was then that he noticed the blanket of silence over everything. It was after midnight, true enough, but there wasn’t a single dog bark or a lone car’s headlights. Not even a whirring insect or a chittering bat. It was as if all life had halted.

“Can you bring us in closer?” Thoki asked his brother.

The horse tossed his head and grunted in the negative. Thoki noticed how the horse’s powerful muscles were writhing under his gleaming coat. Flecks of foam were starting to dot his hide with the effort of keeping aloft in the wild wind. Another flash of lighting struck home a few miles away and the air tasted of burning ozone.

“Set me down then,” said Thoki. “I’ll have to go in myself to get him.”

Slepnir touched down and let Thoki slide off his back. As soon as Thoki was on terra firma however, the horse began to pace and champ anxiously. His eyes rolled back in horror at the deserted plaza where the dark building stood. Thoki too felt revulsion at the heavy pall and it gave him goosebumps and made his legs sweat. There didn’t seem any fear of getting caught by humans, the station doors were wide open and strewn with debris. Thoki squinted as he saw a flurry of white in the dim night.

“Snowflakes?” he mumbled.

Slepnir snorted and reared a little.

“Calm down,” coaxed Thoki. “Stay here and wait for me. I’ll try to be as fast as I can.”

Slepnir whinnied and tugged Thoki’s sleeve with his teeth.

“If you’re that frightened, leave,” said Thoki, somewhat harshly.

Slepnir bowed his head and looked contrite, but he still fidgeted nervously.

“Alright then. Just lay low. I won’t be long,” said Thoki patting his brother one last time before screwing his courage and jogging to the door. He reached into his torn tunic and pulled out Mr. Babbington. There was some blood and horse-spit on the plush pig, but it was otherwise intact. Lor would have wanted that.

Thoki shook his head angrily. He was already thinking about Lor like he was dead. That was bullshit. Lor wasn’t dead he was just incarcerated… in a grim creepy African police station which was snowing right now.

“Oh fuck,” sighed Thoki in distress as he took a deep breath and stepped in.

The cold air slammed into his face like a freight train, fragments of ice stinging his cheek. Icy wind roared past the front desk and whistled through the halls and the cells. Thoki blinked at the dim white shapes casting their own queer light in the darkness. It was like being inside an iceberg — everything was in muted greens and blues.  Thoki made his way to the desk, hoping to find a flashlight, or failing that, something he could set on fire. He tried flicking on the desk lamp, but as he suspected the whole building’s power had gone dead.  He rummaged in the drawers and pulled out a two-foot long electric torch. Switching it on, he tried to discern where the cells might be.

He hadn’t gone more than a few yards when Thoki felt something hard beneath his foot. He aimed his torch downwards and squinting in the darkness he just barely made out the shape of a policeman. The man was huddled in a pose of terror and supplication, his eyes staring ahead at some horror. Thoki looked in the direction the man was facing, trying to see what had frightened him, but there was only dim shadows and white drifts in that direction. It was then that Thoki realized that the man was dead. He had been frozen solid by something that caught him so unaware that he hadn’t had time to shut his eyes.

Thoki shivered from more than the cold this time and fought the vomit rising in his throat. As he walked through the police station, he saw more corpses frozen in various activities. Some hadn’t even had time to recoil and were simply paused in mid-stride or mid-sentence.

“What could have done this?” he mused aloud. His voice was snatched up by the wind and tossed away.

When he found his way to the cells, finally, he saw the source of it all.

Lor was standing upright in his cell, a spikey crystalline giant, twice the size of the red-headed lump he usually was. He wasn’t saying anything or doing anything. He was simply standing there, black currant eyes blinking in the darkness… as large crystalline tears slid down his faceted face and smashed on the frozen concrete.

Thoki gasped and the cruel air burned his lungs and stung his throat.

“Lor?” he called out against the howling wind.

Lor shifted a little, his joints making the sound of ice-flows grating together. His onyx eyes took in Thoki, struggling to keep purchase on the slick floor as the wind beat at him.

“Thoki?” he asked. His voice sounded like the wind howling around them — hollow and mournful.

“You got scared again, didn’t you?” said Thoki, trying to keep the terror out of his voice.

Lor nodded. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I thought I was all alone again. I didn’t want to be alone again.”

Thoki managed a small smile through his shivering blue lips. This was just like their first meeting. Thoki had climbed up Yggdrassil  to Jotunheim to find the whole ice-world empty and deserted… except for one frost giant weeping frozen tears and mourning the fact that he was alone.

“You’re not alone, Lor. I came back.”

“Is it really you?” asked Lor, plaintively.

“It’s really me! I came to get you,” cried Thoki. “Because… because you’re my friend!” He didn’t know why he said it — he felt like a damn fool saying it like that — like some God-dammed preschool kiddie movie. But it was true. He had to say it. More importantly, he had to stop Lor in his inadvertent rampage if he was going to leave the station with his toes intact.

“So what do you say, Lor. Can you keep it together, so we can get out of here?”

“I didn’t mean to kill all the men,” said Lor looking about to blubber again.

“I know you didn’t,” said Thoki nodding. “It was an accident. Come on.”

“One of them was very nice to me,” said Lor as he slowly raised one foot and set it down in the beginning stages of a glacial walk.

“These things happen, I guess,” said Thoki. Already the wind was starting to die down.  “No point in dwelling on it.”

“That’s not true,” said Lor suddenly.

Thoki glanced up to see the giant looking more fleshy and less frosty, but there was a spikiness to his appearance and a fierceness in his eyes that made Thoki shrink. He suddenly remembered just how much the Aesir feared the frost giants of Jotunheim and in a flash knew why that was.

“No life is so worthless that it’s not worth dwelling on Thoki,” Lor said with unusual loquacity. “Every life we encounter teaches us more about ourselves.”

Lor reached down and picked up the frozen body of Daud from the floor. One last frozen tear slid down his face and landed with a “plink” in Daud’s arms.

“What did he teach you?” asked Thoki, pointing to the late Daud.

“Forbearance.”

Thoki looked around at the rime coated cell bars and the snow covered floor. “Forbearance. Right.”

“I think I learned it more in retrospect,” sighed Lor.

Thoki shook his head in confusion. This new philosophical Lor was making him uneasy.

“Let’s go,” pleaded Thoki.

“Alright,” agreed Lor as he lumbered after Thoki without another word.

“Good grief,” muttered Thoki looking around him again in the dim light at the frozen bodies.

Lor only sighed.

“You always do this when you get depressed,” said Thoki shaking his head. “You can’t let yourself get so worked up.”

“Sorry,” muttered Lor, looking more like his old self again Thoki noted in relief.  He still carried the stiff body in his arms, though.

“Hey, cheer up! Look who I brought to see you!” said Thoki, pulling Mr. Babbington out from under his shirt again.

Lor brightened up at the sight of the fluffy pink pig. “Mr. Babbington?”

“Yep. Guess who wants a big ol’ hairy hug?” said Thoki proffering the pig to the giant. Lor gently laid Daud’s body on the ground and reached out for Mr. Babbington. He reverently took the toy from Thoki’s fingers and held it aloft. His currant eyes were round and joyous as he stroked the soft pink plush with one of his huge sausagey fingers.  

His face grew sober again, however, and his brow furrowing he seemed to debate something internally. Finally he lovingly kneeled down and placed the pig in the cold lifeless arms of Officer Daud Latchkara. He patted the piggy on the head like a dog he was discharging to guard something precious.

Without another word Lor lumbered out of the police station with Thoki on his heels looking bewildered.

17: The Book of Lor

Recap: Lor was tricked by Hermes and bound by Gleipnir, the unbreakable cord that once held Fenrir. He is now in the hands of the Egyptian authorities. Thoki, in the meantime has been reunited with his half-brother Slepnir (an 8-legged horse). Slepnir and Thoki are plotting (through various pantomimes and hand gestures) a rescue attempt.

Officer Daud Latchkara was worried. He got the distinct feeling that something weird was going on. First of all, the guy in the holding cell was seven and a half feet tall, and well over 400 lbs. His partner, Hicham, thought the man was probably American. They had a lot of fat people, right? But the red-bearded giant wasn’t fat, he was just HUGE, and the few phrases he spoke were in perfect Arabic. Granted, it wasn’t a Cairo accent. Daud would have been hard-pressed to put a country or region to that accent, but there was no stutter and no mistakes. It was slow and deliberate, but it seemed that everything this giant did was slow and deliberate.

Daud was more worried about the man’s bonds. He and Hicham had tried every implement in the station; scissors, nail cutters, box cutters, and a pair of gardening shears from the janitor’s closet. All were lying in a sad broken pile on his desk. Whatever was tying this poor bastard up, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. In sad defeat, they helped the Giant hop to one of the cell beds where he lay without moving. His little black eyes blinked reflectively, but he did little else.

Despite the man’s terrifying stature, Daud felt nothing but empathy for him. This moron was obviously the victim of some targeted crime — maybe because he looked so odd.

Daud clanged his tray on the cell bars to announce his presence.

“I’ve brought you some food,” he said.

“Thank you,” said the man.

Daud was momentarily stymied by the fact that the man’s hands couldn’t even take the tray. “Looks like I’m going to have to feed you then,” he sighed. With a few groans, he sat on the hard floor and ripped off a piece of the pita.

“I would appreciate it,” said the Giant meekly. His stomach answered with a rumble that Daud could feel through the floor.

“So what’s your name?”

“Lor.”

“Lor what?”

“Lor Torsson.”

“Ah, you’re from Scandinavia then? Or are you German?” asked Daud, giving Lor some of the lentil stew on a piece of pita.

“The first one,” said Lor, after swallowing.

“Sweden?” guessed Daud.

“I don’t know. It was first a lot of countries, and then one big country and now it’s four or five. It’s hard to tell.  Anyway, I never saw much of the land part anyway.”

“Did you live on a boat?” asked Daud, confused as he gave Lor some of the cheese.

“No, I lived in another world apart from this one. It was made of ice and snow… and more ice,” said Lor.

Daud paused, his hand hovering in the air. Some of the lentils fell off the soggy bread and landed on his pants cuff.

“I’m sorry?”

“I came from Jotunheim, land of the Frost Jotun. Every day we waged war on humans and the gods and when they weren’t around to fight, we fought each other.”

Daud tried to fight against the impulse to jump to his feet and run away. Clearly Lor was insane. Daud tried to regain his calm, reminding himself that the man was tied up and couldn’t do anything to him.

“There a lot of you Jotun?” asked Daud. Maybe this was a gang he was part of… or a cult.

“No. I’m the only one left,” said Lor.

“Oh,” said Daud, sighing in relief as he held up the glass of water with a drinking straw. At least there weren’t a throng of large red-headed men walking around Cairo.

“So why are you the only one left?” asked Daud.

“When the Frost and Fire Giants descended on Asgard we were picked off by the Aesir, who were like nothing we had ever seen. I tried, but I was outmatched almost at the beginning. I had relied too much on my strength… and didn’t expect to fight a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Skadii, goddess of mountains and skiing. She was practically Jotun, a true child of snow and ice… and I was not prepared.”

“Did you fall in love with her?” asked Daud, checking his watch. Where the HELL was the second shift?

“No,” said Lor, to Daud’s surprise.

“You didn’t?

“But I didn’t want to fight her. I didn’t want to stamp out that light. So I ran away.”

Daud didn’t know how much credence to give to any of this until Lor sighed mournfully. Suddenly there was a chill in that stifling cell. Daud had only seen snow a few times in his life but there was a metallic tang to the air that he recognized as the hairs on his arm rose. It smelled like snow. He lifted up the glass of water to give Lor and then dropped it. It was so cold that it burned his hand.

The glass shattered on the concrete floor but there was no splash of water. Instead there was a cylinder of ice rolling across the floor; a straw was sticking out of it like an antenna. Looking up at Lor, Daud screamed. The Giant was covered in frost and ice, like freezer-burned leftover wrapped in foil. His eyes were still alive and sparkling, but his beard was now frozen into crystalline spikes — or were they? The more Daud looked at Lor the more it seemed that Lor was made OUT of ice. His muscles were becoming smooth facets on pale glittering skin the colour of milk.

Closing his eyes and grunting loudly, Lor made another valiant effort to break his bonds. With a loud cry that shook the police station the taut ribbon snapped and fell rigidly to the floor.

Daud spun around on the slick floor and scrambled out of the cell, slamming the door shut. Skidding to a halt at his desk he lifted up the phone just as the power flickered and died. He waited for the back-up generator to kick in, but nothing seemed to happen. He was trapped in the dark in a freezing cold station with a monster made of ice.

Daud offered any prayer he could think of to Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and Saint Michael to keep him safe.  Every second he felt certain that the cell door would go flying across the room like crumpled tin foil and the icy giant would tear through the station... but there was only silence.

Screwing up his courage, Daud grabbed an electric torch and cautiously approached Lor’s cell. The giant was still lying on the cot, head on his arm, staring at the wall. He was free of his bonds, but otherwise nothing seemed to have changed.

As Daud relaxed a little and summoned up the courage to yell for Hicham downstairs, he heard a stifled sob from Lor’s cell.

“I ran away,” Lor whispered.

16: My Brother, the Horse

Recap: Thoki was just menaced by his half-brother, Fenrir, in an ambush. Thoki narrowly escaped when his youngest half-brother Slepnir appeared and flew him to safetey. They were unabe to rescue Lor, however, who was tied up in unbreakable ropes and left for the police.

Slepnir, alighted gracefully atop the roof of a nearby apartment complex. Thoki scrambled off his back and turned to look at his estranged half-brother. After a moment’s awkward silence, Thoki dove forward and embraced him. Slepnir returned the gesture by nickering and chewing on Thoki’s hair.

Slepnir was another parasitic shoot on Loki’s warped family tree. The eight-legged horse’s origin had its roots in a bizarre bout of circumstances that could ONLY happen to omnipotent deities. In summary, Loki’s gift at shape-shifting resulted in his becoming Slepnir’s mother. Loki was thoroughly ashamed of his foal and Slepnir was immediately pawned off on Odin. One of the few times Loki had ever spoken to Thoki like a son was when he was forbidden to go anywhere near Odin’s stables.

Thoki was afraid of horses and shyed away from them as a rule, but this outright ban on the stables made them all the more attractive to young Thoki. Filling his pocket with carrots, he ran down to the stables at night to find Hermod the stable-master fussing over a thin fuzzy thing that seemed to be made of knees. It freaked Thoki out, thinking that it resembled more of a spider than a horse, but the forlorn look on the foal’s face was unmistakable as was the quiet resignation on Hermod’s broad face.

“It won’t eat,” he said gruffly. “I’ve seen it before. The poor thing is heartbroken.”

“I think I would be too if I suddenly found out my mom was a red-headed son of a bitch who said ‘let’s dialogue about that’ all the time,” said Thoki.

Hermod said nothing, but his mouth twitched a little. “We can’t help our family connections,” he said.

 “Is he going to die?” Thoki asked. It seemed to Hermod, that the inquiry was less out of concern than out of academic curiosity.

“He may. You want to try?” asked the stablehand, shoving the bucket of mash into Thoki’s hands. He gave Thoki a look that said, “surprise me,” and then walked out of the stable.

Thoki sniffed at the bucket and wrinkled his nose. “No wonder you’re starving. Look what they’re feeding you,” he said, dropping the bucket. He pulled out the carrots from his pocket and offered them to the horse. The horse sniffed the vegetables and then nibbled them experimentally. He seemed to like them but was having trouble chewing through the tough orange flesh. Thoki thought about this, and then grabbing a carrot and chewing it thoroughly, spat the whole thing into the mash bucket. He offered the premasticated carrot and mash to the foal, who gobbled it up appreciatively. Thoki finished up with the rest of the carrots, spitting the chewed-up chunks into the pan.

“I know this is gross, but this is how they invented mead, so I guess it’s okay,” said Thoki through crunches.  “So you’re another one of Loki’s mistakes, huh?” he mused.

The horse looked up at him with large dark eyes. It didn’t speak — it wasn’t designed for speech —but it had very expressive eyes that seemed to say, “you too, huh?”

“Yeah,” sighed Thoki. “Me too.”  The horse extended a mash-covered nose and nuzzled Thoki’s face.

“Hey! Stop it!” laughed Thoki, trying to keep foal away.

Since that day, they were true brothers. They were never thrown together much. When Slepnir grew from a colt to a Stallion, Odin lent him to any Aesir that needed him and Thoki was never included in that circle.

 In fact, up to now, on this wild night in Cairo, Thoki had never ridden him.

Thoki clutched his dislocated arm, hissing with the pain and looked over the rooftops, trying to discern what was happening in the park. It was no good;  he and Slepnir had flown too far away to see what was happening to Lor. All they could see was the distant wink of police lights.

“We have to go back for Lor!” he shouted , spinning around to look at the horse.

Slepnir’s ears swiveled back and his eyes grew wide.

“No, I’m sure Fenrir took off,” said Thoki.

Slepnir bared his teeth.

“I’m pretty sure,” admitted Thoki.

The horse trotted in a tight circle for a moment, then came back and nuzzled Thoki’s bad arm.

“I know I’m hurt! But I can’t leave him alone! He’s bailed me out so many times… I just can’t leave him.”

Slepnir cocked his head and nickered.

“What do you mean, that doesn’t sound like me?” asked Thoki in annoyance. “What did you’d think I say?”

The horse fell on the ground, rolled onto his back, and put all eight legs up in the air, like a cartoon corpse.

“Oh, ‘ha-ha.’ Very funny,” grumbled Thoki as Slepnir rose again and shook the dust off his dove-grey hide. He then nuzzled Thoki’s face again.

“Of course, I’m happy to see you,” said Thoki quietly. He accidentally bumped his left arm and bit back a wave of nausea. “You’re the number one person I’d have wished to see again.”

Slepnir gave him a penetrating look.

“Okay, maybe you’re the second person,” he said with a wry grin. The horse shook his head in exasperation. “Of course, a DOCTOR would be pretty high on the list right now,” Thoki added, looking mournfully at his useless arm.

Slepnir seemed to consider this. He then turned 180°and backed up to a yard’s distance from Thoki.

“What’re you doing?” asked Thoki warily.

Slepnir didn’t answer but hopped onto his forelegs before his third hind leg kicked Thoki’s elbow upward. There was a sucking sound and a sickening squelch while Thoki’s scream bounced off the rooftops. He was holding his shoulder, which felt like it had been dipped in red-hot lava, and his elbow

“WHAT THE HELL?” he screamed at the horse.

Slepnir screamed at him.

“Are you a trained medical specialist? I don’t think so!” countered Thoki.

Slepnir reared just a little to look menacing.

“Yeah, it’s in, but what about nerve damage? What about this gigantic bruise on my elbow? You could have shattered it, you eightlegged can of dogfood!” Thoki flexed the fingers on his left hand and tried to swallow the vomit rising in his throat.

Slepnir, champed but looked contrite. He cocked his head to the side again.

“NO, I don’t want you to reset my nose! Are you insane?” Thoki shouted, covering his face protectively.

Slepnir shook his head.

“SURE you weren’t gonna kick it. If it’s all the same to you I like it broken,” Thoki said.  “Now what are we going to do with Lor!”

(Whinny)

“Yeah, I suppose he’s safer in jail than he is with Fenrir. Thank God we’re not in Turkey or France. But I still can’t leave him there! …He needs me,” Thoki said as realization stole over him. I think I need him too, he thought.

Slepnir cozied up to Thoki, who finally accepted that the horse wouldn’t try any more first aid and patted his neck. Slepnir sprayed him with a tiny shower of horse-snot, but Thoki’d endured worse today.

“I know he’s a giant, but hey we’re half giant,” said Thoki. “We can’t help how we’re made.”

Slepnir cropped off some of Thoki’s hair and chewed it thoughtfully. Just as Thoki began to feel something in his left arm other than searing horrendous pain, Slepnir jumped up and ran in a circle. “You know someone? Who?” asked Thoki.

Slepnir bowed, so his short brother could clamber onto his back again.

“What do you mean, we’ll see?” asked Thoki in annoyance. But only had his rear-end nipped due to Slepnir’s impatience. “Seriously, WHO? I don’t do surprises, Slep.”

The horse shifted under Thoki until his weight settled comfortably. Then with a piercing whinny and a stomach-churning lurch Slepnir launched himself into the air again.

“Thank GOD I don’t have to roll down any windows to be sick out of,” said Thoki through white lips.