Chronicles of Loki (eBook)

Chapter One

Seeing Through a Glass Darkly

R’lyeh

In R’lyeh, Cthulhu dreamed of Mu-Thulan, when he and his fellow Elder Beings had ruled this world the humans called Earth. Great had been the cities his race had built both on land and under the sea. Pleasing had been the many temples raised in their honor by the human thralls who served them. Numberless were the eldritch ceremonies and blood sacrifices performed in them to assuage the many appetites of himself and the others of his kind. Even now, years out of mind from that moment, he could still smell the sea-scented incense rising before his blood splattered altars; taste the iron bled out of those sacrificed to him and hear the screams of the offerings with whom he had deigned to mate.

Then came the time of ice and snow, when the land masses had been covered by glaciers and even the depths of the oceans could provide no relief from the cold. It was then that his race had fled back to the stars from which they came while condemning dread Cthulhu and those who followed him to exile in this frozen waste of a world. It was then that his long slumber had begun in R’lyeh, a deep sleep that had lasted millennia until he had been awakened by the sound of his name uttered in the language and according to the rituals of Mu-Thulan.

The human called Odin had awakened him and made him aware of the world that had arisen on the ashes of his race’s civilization. Gone were the great cities of the Elder Beings. Only remnants of that time remained, such as the plinth circles wherein his kind had met and mated, and the temple he had built on the island the humans named Jormundheim.

In their place, the human filth that had bred and multiplied by the thousands had carved out petty kingdoms and dotted the land with settlements they laughably called cities. It was a most displeasing sight that filled Cthulhu with rage and resolved him to cleanse Mu-Thulan, cull its human herds, and make it ready for the return of his race.

Realizing this resolution was a long and laborious process for one such as he. The intellect of Odin, the human through whom he worked his will, was limited and inferior. He had to be trained in the language and rituals of Mu-Thulan, and bent to the will of his master. This involved the suppression of his many human emotions and the severing of his ties of family and friendship so that he could carry out what needed to be done to bring his master’s vision into being.

And then there were the forces of nature that had to be harnessed so that Mu-Thulan could be cleansed of the human infestations that covered its four corners. To achieve this end necessitated the resurrection of the technologies the Elder Beings had used to reshape this world to their liking when they had first arrived from the stars and claimed it for their own. These had lain in abeyance for millennia and had to be refurbished and in some cases rebuilt entirely.

Still, he was an Elder Thing for whom time had little if any meaning, and in the end his efforts and his patience were bringing him ever closer to his goals. His human servitor had laid the foundations for a new group of overseers to control and periodically cull the humans who would survive the coming holocaust. By convincing Odin that his brother Loki and his family were to be the agents of a great and bloody Ragnarok, he had set into motion the string of events that would plunge all of the human realms into a continental war that would leave them weak, divided, and ripe for the return of the Elder Beings. And in the depths of the sea where he lay dreaming in R’lyeh forces were being unleashed that would change the face of the continent the humans called Igdrasil.

Then he would wrest control of the gate from his sister Yog-Sothoth, open its portal, and summon his race to once more take control of this world.

All this and more Cthulhu dreamed while he lay slumbering in R’lyeh.

Asgard

As his master dreamed in R’lyeh, Odin brooded at the head of his column on the way back to Asgard from the failed Althing in the Sacred Grove of the World Tree. Bitterness and anger filled him as he contemplated how he had been manipulated and used by the dread Elder Being he had served so loyally over the years. How could he have been so blind to what Yog-Sothoth had called his “cruel and capricious nature?”

What else could one say of a being who demanded blood sacrifices and other dark rituals to satisfy his monstrous appetites? And then there was the admission from Cthulhu himself that he had never been, nor ever would be anything but a tool that he would wield to torment, torture, and enslave both his people and all the other human inhabitants of Igdrasil.

Bitterest of all was the knowledge that he had wronged his beloved brother Loki and the members of his family to avert a war that these wrongs had made inevitable. Because of his foolishness, nay his madness, Angrboda had died and her husband, eldest son, and daughter had lost their freedom. Loki had been right at the Althing to name him the author of the coming conflict.

Yes, he had been a fool, and he and his family would soon pay a steep price for his folly. The Ragnarok he had foreseen when he hung from the World Tree was coming. Of this there could no longer be any doubt and he had insured its arrival. Indeed, even now Loki had made the opening moves in a war that would sweep away Asgard and his house. Surt would keep Frey at bay and doubtless his Midgard allies would soon be the subjects of Hrothgar the Younger and thus the allies of Jotunheim.

Though there would be no redemption for him and his family, perhaps there might yet be a way to save some of his people from the doom he had unleashed. What had the Elder Thing called Yog-Sothoth said to him at the Sacred Spring? “Your doom is sealed, Odin of Asgard,” in that voice that was not a voice, in a language he knew not but still understood. “Because of you war has come to all of Igdrasil, a war that will consume you and the one who was once your brother. Some of your people might yet be saved, however. Look to the west, look to my children of the forest and the river for guidance.” She must have been referring to the wee folk of the mountains and forests. What had Wendegal said about them at the Althing? The Elves were building arks as if in expectation of some great catastrophe.

Odin knew there was no time for him to instigate, much less complete such a project to save the Aesir. Loki and his allies would strike Asgard quickly and hard some time before fall. No, he couldn’t save all of his people, but he could save some of them and entrust these fortunate few with the wherewithal to start life anew somewhere else. To these survivors he would entrust his great library, weapons enough to defend themselves, and considerable treasure with which to barter for food and shelter. And he knew exactly whom he could entrust with this task.

Summoning his faithful acolyte, Vidar, to his side, Odin began to relate to him his plan for the salvation of the Aesir from oblivion and some redemption for himself and the bane he had ultimately been for all the Ymir.

Vanaheim

Frey and Freya rode ahead of their contingent to the Althing so that they could better converse in private. The end of that event had been quite tumultuous, what with the abrupt departure of both Loki and Odin despite the protestations of Wendegal and his fellow shamans. Neither man had given the High Shaman any explanation as to their decision to depart the gathering before its completion. And even more mysterious was the disappearance of Brother Oskar and the letters he had been charged to deliver to the three high kings inviting them to a parley with Wendegal as mediator.

Actually, Brother Oskar had been spirited out of the Sacred Grove, given a fresh horse, and sent back to Noatun and his Morðingi masters. Freya had favored killing him for bungling the assassination, but Frey had thought otherwise. Aside from the problem his corpse would pose, the Vanir king felt that his assassin’s plan had been first rate and would likely have succeeded if Hoder had stayed in Vanaheim and not tipped off Loki’s accursed twins to the rumors making the rounds in Noatun about the Guild of Assassins planning something big for the Althing. It was really quite dispiriting that secrets were so difficult to keep among the gossip-loving Vanir.

Then there was also the fact that Loki had put a stop to the assassination attempt out of an uncharacteristic bout with his conscience. Whatever his brother’s Vanir heritage and upbringing, he still at times exhibited that dour Jotun fondness for fairness, which, as every self-respecting Vanir knew, was not how the real world operated. In any case, Oskar, or whatever his real name was, was now the business of the Morðingi Directorate. Whether they decided to make an example of him or not was their decision.

Being Vanir and as such always conscious of good manners, Frey and his sister tarried another couple of days in the Sacred Grove to assuage the good Wendegal’s feelings. They explained to him that the failure of the...