The Gospel of Loki (15 page)

LESSON 8

The Midnight Sun

The place in which the sun never sets is a place where anything is possible.

Lokabrenna

M
EANWHILE
, we were still wandering in the middle of nowhere. Mist had rolled thickly off the moors, and although at this time of year in the North the sun barely ever left the sky, it was cold, and bleak, and cheerless. I for one was beginning to wish for my hearth and Sigyn’s home cooking but Thor was keen to make an impression on his eager new followers, and even I was reluctant to go back without putting on a bit of a show.

And so the four of us made our way over one last necklace of glaciers until we reached a strip of sea, beyond which we could see forest and a dizzying chain of white mountains.

This was Utgard – the Furthest North. We knew it by reputation, although as far as we knew, even Odin had never actually been there. For six months in the year, we’d heard, the sun never clipped the horizon; everything was frozen, and Northlights danced across the dark-blue winter sky. The summer was brief – barely three months – but during that time, Chaos reigned: the sun never set; monsters roamed; the vegetation grew rampant and, according to the legends, anything was
possible.

To me, it sounded like a good place to avoid, but Thialfi and Roskva were watching us, their eyes like stars, and we felt their expectation – their
love
– like the weight of a yoke on our backs.

I suppose we both got carried away. I don’t know how else to explain it. We were drunk on celebrity; willing to run the most foolish of risks rather than let down our worshippers. By the shore, we found an old boat, bleached white as bone, but still intact and, leaving Thor’s chariot behind, we decided to cross the sea into the land of the Northlights.

The strait was mostly free of ice. We crossed it in less than twenty-four hours, landing on a broad white beach bristling with driftwood and the bones of long-dead animals.

We dragged the boat past the tideline, then picked up our packs and headed inland. The mountains seemed as far away as they had on the other side of the strait, and much of the land was forest; dark and deep and scented with pine and filled with plants and animals that none of us had ever seen. Here there were trees so straight and tall that they almost rivalled Yggdrasil; black squirrels that ran up and down the trunks; livid fungi as tall as a man. It was a strange and unsettling place, and as we moved further into the woods I felt more and more uneasy. Something out there was watching us. I could feel it in my guts.

‘Frightened of wolves?’ said Thor, and laughed. ‘That’s a good one. The Father of Wolves, getting jumpy about his relatives.’

I pointed out that just because I was Fenris’s father, it wouldn’t have stopped him snacking on me if the urge had taken him. Besides, if even mushrooms could grow this tall in this part of World Beyond, to what size could a werewolf grow – or even, gods preserve us, a
snake
.

‘Snakes?’ said Thialfi. ‘You think there are snakes?’

I shrugged. ‘Who knows? There might be.’

Thialfi shivered. ‘I hate snakes. Especially those green ones
that hide in the reeds when you’re swimming, and the brown ones that lie by the side of the path and look almost invisible. Or the big ones that hang from the trees . . .’

This was when I realized that I might have found a travelling companion even more annoying than Honir. I considered closing his mouth with a cantrip of the rune
Naudr
, but he was Thor’s number-one fan, and I feared that the Thunderer might object if I muted his number-one fan. And so we went on through the forest, Yours Truly feeling increasingly jumpy, Thialfi talking cheerily and incessantly about snakes.

At this point, it began to rain. The kind of steady, drenching rain that might go on for ever. It ran down our backs, flattened our hair, filled the forest with the scent of rotting wood and sour, damp earth. I was getting hungry but there was no sign of game, and I wasn’t quite desperate enough to try eating one of the squirrels.

‘I’m tired,’ said Roskva. (I could tell from her trusting expression that she expected me to fix this.) ‘Isn’t it nearly time to make camp?’

I looked around and realized I had no idea how long we had been walking. I could still see daylight between the trees but this was the time when the sun never set, and I guessed it might already be late. I didn’t like the thought of sleeping in the woods but there didn’t seem to be any choice. There was no sign of habitation; no shelter, not even a woodsman’s hut. We continued along the narrow path, until at last we came to a glade, in which there stood a building. It was a strange and shapeless building; not quite a hall, and not quite a cave; there were no doors or windows; and the opening, whatever it was, seemed almost as broad as the ceiling was high. It was a decent size, though, and although it didn’t look (or smell) too welcoming, it would at least provide shelter.

‘Let’s sleep here tonight,’ I suggested. ‘It looks completely abandoned.’

The children looked at me doubtfully. Perhaps they’d
expected their gods to provide better accommodation. But we’d been walking for hours by then, and I was cold and exhausted. The cave – the building, whatever it was – would keep us dry till morning.

And so we slept for an hour or so, until we were awoken by a crash. There followed an ominous rumbling sound, the ground rocked like a boat in a storm . . .

‘An earthquake!’ said Thor.

‘Terrific,’ I said.

Thialfi and Roskva clung to each other. Both were pale and trembling. I made for the cave entrance, half expecting a rock-fall, but almost at once the rumbling died down, and so did the rocking movement. Soon, everything was calm again. If it had been a quake, it was over.

Outside, the rain continued unabated.

We debated leaving the shelter. Another earthquake might trap us inside the mysterious building. On the other hand, a night in the woods was hardly a welcome prospect.

‘I don’t see how outside is going to be any safer than inside,’ said Thor. ‘There may be wolves in those woods, or worse. I say we stay here tonight. Perhaps we can make a stand if something attacks. I’ve heard there are monsters in these parts.’

‘Now
he tells me,’ I muttered.

And so we retreated to the back of the hall, where, in the semi-darkness, we found a kind of shallow cave leading off at an angle. It was warmer in there, and more secure; if it came to a fight, at least we’d have the wall at our backs. We slept there, but badly; twice more in the night there were sounds – a muffled bellowing. It might have been Thor breaking wind in his sleep, but on the whole I doubted it.

I pulled my cloak over my head and tried to ignore the weird sounds, but it was a tired and listless Trickster who, some four hours later, finally called it a night and crept to the entrance of the cave to see what might be happening.

The first thing I saw was a pair of feet as large as the average
garden shed. Further investigation revealed them to belong to a sleeping figure; a giant of spectacular size, fast asleep and snoring.

I told Thor. ‘That explains a lot. The rumbling, the earthquakes. Seems you’re not the only one who farts in his sleep and snores like a pig.’

Thor went out to see for himself. I followed at a cautious distance. At Thor’s approach the giant opened one eye (an eye as big as a barn door and grey as a freshwater oyster) and said: ‘Why hello, little man.’

‘Who are you?’ said Thor, who didn’t appreciate being called ‘little’.

‘Skrymir,’ said the giant. His voice was as deep as the ocean. He looked a little more closely at the two of us. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, you’re Asa-Thor. And that’s Loki, the Trickster.’

I had to admit that I was.

He grinned. ‘I’ve heard the stories,’ he said. ‘But I thought you’d be bigger in real life. Has anybody seen my glove?’ He sat up and looked around. ‘Ah! There it is!’

That was when I realized that the hall in which we’d spent the night was Skrymir’s glove; a stitched leather mitten of colossal size, with an extra space for the thumb. This space was the smaller cavern in which we’d spent the night – it also explained the strong smell of goat and the strange consistency of the walls, which were neither stone nor wood, nor any other building material I could identify.

Thialfi and Roskva had come out into the open and were watching Skrymir nervously; he put on his glove, shouldered his pack and stood up, ready to go on his way.

Then he seemed to have a thought. ‘If you want to meet my folk, our stronghold isn’t far from here. Utgard. I could show you the way.’

We thought about that for a moment. As I said before, Utgard had a reputation. There were rumours of a fortress, buried deep in the permafrost, built to rival Asgard and ruled by a master
of glamours and runes. No one had ever gone far enough north to find out the truth of these rumours, though if there was any truth to the tale, it probably wasn’t the wisest move for Thor and me to go in alone.

But Thialfi and Roskva were watching us, and – what can I say?

‘All right,’ said Thor.

‘I’ll lead you as far as I can,’ Skrymir said. ‘I’m not heading back to Utgard myself, but I’ll show you to the city gates. Walk with me, and I’ll carry your gear.’

And so we handed over our packs, with the last of our food, our dry clothes and all we had for the journey. Then we followed Skrymir – or at least, we tried to. But the big guy was moving far too fast, and with such giant strides that he soon left the rest of us behind. Even Thialfi, who was young and energetic, could only keep up with him at a sprint, and was soon exhausted.

But Skrymir wasn’t hard to track; we heard his progress from afar and saw the trail he left through the woods; a broken line of fallen trees. We followed the trail throughout the day, getting hungrier and more irritable as the hours passed, and finally, we caught up with him under a stand of ancient oaks; sitting on his bedroll and finishing the last of a giant meal.

Thor strode up to him, looking grim.

Skrymir gave his giant smile. ‘Oh,
there
you are, Asa-Thor,’ he said. ‘I was just about to turn in. I get so tired after a day in the fresh air.’

‘What about our dinner?’ growled Thor.

‘Help yourself,’ said Skrymir. ‘The food’s in my pack. I’m going to sleep.’ And he wrapped himself in his bedroll, and was very soon snoring like thunder.

But the knots that fastened the giant’s pack were deceptively complicated. Thor struggled with them without success, then turned to Yours Truly.

‘Here, you try. You’re good with knots.’

But even I couldn’t open the bag. The knots were too tight,
too slippery. I handed the bag to Thialfi and Roskva, thinking that perhaps their small fingers would prove more agile, but even they failed to open the bag.

‘Skrymir did this on purpose,’ said Thor. ‘He’s been putting us down from the very first. He’s trying to make us look small.’

I shrugged. ‘Well, that’s not difficult. For a guy the size of a mountain.’

Thor picked up his hammer. ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall,’ he said, and hurled Mjølnir at Skrymir’s head.

Skrymir awoke. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘Did a leaf fall onto my head?’ He stirred and rolled over. ‘Thor, is that you? Have you had your dinner yet?’

Thor was so taken aback at this that he just opened his mouth and stared.

‘Then go back to sleep,’ said Skrymir. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

Within two minutes, he was asleep again and snoring like an army of pigs. The rest of us exchanged glances, shrugged and prepared to go to bed hungry.

That turned out to be harder than I’d previously thought. Even in the shade of the trees, the peculiar light was unsettling. Midnight, yet the sun still shone redly through the treetops. It made it hard for me to sleep; besides which, Thor’s stomach was rumbling almost as loudly as Skrymir’s snoring. I was ravenous, and yet I knew I couldn’t ask for Skrymir’s help in opening the knapsack. For a start, Thor would kill me, then he would probably kill himself in a fit of mortification. Second, Thialfi and Roskva were there, and they expected better of us. And so I lay, hungry and sleepless, and wondered what I was doing here, when I had a wife in Asgard.

Yes, that’s how far gone I was. I actually almost
missed
Sigyn.

Eventually, Thor sat up. I could tell he was making an effort but even so, stealth really isn’t his thing. Through one half-open eye, I watched as he went over to Skrymir’s side. He was carrying Mjølnir, and I could see he meant business. That botched
attempt at killing the giant –
and
in front of his number-one fans – must have been preying on his mind. Once more, he raised the hammer and brought it down with a sickening
thud
. . .

Skrymir awoke. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘I’m sure I felt a twig drop on my head. Is that you, Asa-Thor? Why are you up? Is it morning already?’

Thor looked distinctly put out at this. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

And so the giant turned over again, and was soon as soundly asleep as before.