The Makers and the Made

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone

who thinks he sees what God is doing

Bokonon

Lóki woke to the sound of dull thuds against wood. Buried under a heap of animal pelts and several bodies unencumbered by anything resembling clothing, he managed — barely — to tear his booze-petrified head from the vast bedstead and attempt to piece together his surroundings. His whole torso felt as though it had been stuffed with lead weights or, worse yet, used a couple of times as the head of a battering ram. Unable to do anything that might pass for heroic, he tried instead to estimate — by the scattered female limbs protruding here and there — the approximate number of maidens with whom he had, judging by all signs, spent a rather satisfactory night. Losing count several times and starting over, the tipsy god arrived at a final tally of seven legs and four arms, one of which lay proprietorially across his chest. That averaged out to roughly three and a half people. People, though? Perhaps. Interesting… Lóki cast a bleary, contemplative look around the squat interior of the peasant hut. Asgard? Vanaheim? Or had fate dumped him all the way down in Midgard? Deciding to clarify at least that much, he hooked the nearest torso with his heel and kicked it off the bed in one motion. The half-naked girl, sliding from the warm captivity of the sheepskins, emitted only a muted squeak as she hit the floor — and froze there, neither waking nor changing position. Human. So, it was Midgard, he concluded. Had the victim of his whims been a valkyrie, she’d already be hammering his skull in, regardless of her level of drunkenness. The heavy blows — evidently knocking on the door, which had quieted for a moment — resumed after a few minutes. Cursing everything upon which the Nine Worlds stood, Lóki staggered toward the far wall of the shack to unbolt it, praying along the way that the pounding in his skull would at least drown out whatever fresh nonsense or complaints about his transgressions the unknown visitors had surely brought. “Who in all nine hells has fate dragged here now?” he rasped, throwing his full weight against the door. It opened with a soul-shrinking groan, revealing the torso of a warrior on the threshold — and only the torso. There was far too much height in the visitor and far too little doorway in the hut for Lóki to see anything else at first. All he managed to make out were a pair of heavy, black leather boots shod in wrought metal and a gilded baldric with a sheath big enough to house a rather impressive two-handed sword. Tilting his head back, he squinted into the painfully bright sunlight and nearly toppled backward into the hut — but a massive foreign hand shot out and caught him by the shoulder, steadying him with insulting ease. “Well met, brother!” The guest’s voice rumbled like thunder, forcing Lóki to wince again as his skull throbbed. “You look like Hel chewed you up and spat you out!” “And health to you as well, Heim,” the god of mischief replied, wrestling his traitorous tongue into obedience as his memory slowly began answering the summons of its owner. “I uphold my high reputation, as you see. Care to step inside and warm yourself at the hearth of an old friend?” The giant called Heim sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose with open disapproval. “You’re not alone, I see. Might be better if we talk outside.” “Prude,” Lóki snorted and shuffled out into the daylight, wrapping himself tighter in some shapeless gray homespun to shield against the spring chill. Casting a reluctant glance around, he finally began recalling where the capricious will of fate had dumped him. He stood in the midst of an ordinary mortal village of perhaps fifteen houses. No people in sight — and rightly so: who would be abed at midday when the livestock needed feeding and returning husbands demanded care and wifely attention? Lóki stepped into the yard, the spring mud squelching underfoot in a way he detested with every fiber of his being, and cast a dour look about. From the far edge of the settlement, a rooster fussed and suddenly began screeching like a madman; in a nearby shed, some pig grunted twice and fell silent again. Peace. Pastoral peace. Utterly disgusting. Trying to pull his drink-ravaged mind — and the no less titanic schemes it harbored for acquiring yet more of that drink, and cheaper — into some semblance of order, the god staggered toward a rain barrel he had noticed near the hut’s entrance and, slipping a little, bent over it and plunged his head into it twice with considerable feeling. His head answered such familiarity with an even louder ringing in his ears and sharp flashes of pain behind his eyes. Deciding nothing good would come of further efforts, Lóki gave up with a hopeless wave of his hand, turned back to his guest, and wiped the water streaming down his face with his sleeve. “Well then, what brings you here? Come to check whether I’m still in exile?” “You sound almost disappointed!” Heimdallr barked a laugh, flashing a smile bright enough to shame the sun. “If you ask me, you’ve settled quite comfortably here!” “Oh, spare me, please!” Lóki frantically waved his hands at him, screwing his eyes shut in horror. “One look at your gilding and I’ll go blind! And as for me — I have never understood why All-Father considers living among mortals a punishment. Tell me, has he at last given up chasing the local maidens? Or — listen here! — is this exile, in fact, his way of thanking me? Well, Heim?” “And why, pray tell, would he thank you?” Heimdallr frowned, irritated that the conversation was veering away from what he had intended — and toward wounds that had only just begun to close. “Oh, I don’t know — maybe he’s simply glad to be rid of his precious little son?” Lóki shrugged with exaggerated indifference. “If I had such a brat, I’d be overjoyed to misplace him under a stump somewhere in the woods!” “Enough, brother!” The guardian-god’s hand twitched toward the hilt of his sword. “You went too far with Baldr — and you know it.” “But of course — how else could it be!” A hidden bitterness flashed in Lóki’s voice. “Mother’s darling got himself such a hangover he began seeing dwarves and then refused to go down for his half-year’s sleep, as if the seasons themselves could wait on his nerves. A catastrophe, no less! Quick, let’s turn all Asgard upside down and crown the heir as an invincible hero! And mortals will love it too — who’d complain about eternal spring, right?” By the end of his tirade, he was shouting, and only once he calmed himself did he continue in a lower voice: “And who cares that eternal spring means no crops sprouting, dead soil, and mortals terrified out of their wits by starvation, eh? At least they’ll have flowers for wreaths all year round.” Heimdallr lowered his head in a gloomy nod, accepting his brother’s reasoning, though he still attempted a protest. “But not by killing him!” “Oh, and why not?” Lóki shrugged irritably. “Now nature can answer for itself. And I, as you see, hold no grudge.” He strolled unhurriedly toward the fence surrounding his crooked little hut with its sagging roof. “And I got off lightly, by the look of things. Heard plenty while I was sitting in that cage — Frigg fretting over me, ready to pour poison down my throat with her own hands.” “She is his mother…” Heimdallr rumbled, bewildered — and earned yet another skeptical chuckle from Lóki. Lóki knew perfectly well that the guardian-god, kind and guileless at heart, detested the feuds and petty brawls that so gloriously defined their fellow Æsir. And the very notion that All-Father and his wife could be wrong about something — or stoop to petty vengeance against someone who refused to dance to their tune — bordered, for Heimdallr, on outright treason. “All right…” Lóki pushed open the wooden gate and stepped from the yard onto the moisture-soaked, muddy road. “Come along, since you wanted to talk. I know a spot.” Half an hour later, having left the village behind and not meeting a single living soul — save for a startled hen that darted right under their feet — the two friends descended into a small valley overgrown with low, withered heather that had not yet found the strength to green after the long winter. Reaching the lowest point, Lóki simply dropped onto the slope beside a lively mountain stream still half-trapped in the ice remnants and now enthusiastically gnawing at its crystalline prison. Tucking his right foot — still in a soft leather house slipper — under himself, the god of mischief lazily scratched at his still-damp black stubble, untouched by a razor for what must have been weeks, and patted the plump body of the hen — which had so recently been clucking in indignation and was now destined to become his hearty meal — on the ground beside him, inviting Heim to join. Heimdallr, dropping his baldric and placing his sword within easy reach, wasted no time accepting the invitation. “How are things up above?” Lóki asked, flicking small icicles off the nearest bush with a snap of his fingers. “Bad,” Heimdallr admitted gloomily; as he sat down, a handful of snow had slid right into his trouser leg, ruining what little remained of his mood. “How did you end up in this forsaken wilderness? Even by human standards, this place is a hole.” “May Yggdrasil forbid,” Lóki agreed. “But the girls in this backwater are devilishly pretty. You’ve seen… heard… smelled them yourself, no? — ah, never mind! Point is, quite the beauties. And all three are daughters of the local smith, can you imagine? How could I not linger a while? I'd have stayed forever, were it not for the fact that their mead tastes like donkey piss.” At that, Heimdallr snorted with amusement, though he had never once succeeded in shaming his mischievous uncle. “What are you laughing at? I tried the stuff once — didn’t look closely enough.” Lóki did not so much as blink, ignoring the teasing. “Their mead’s filth, that’s all. And their father will crawl out of his forge sooner or later and come after me with a club for ruining his daughters. His bellows can’t be dead for five days straight, can they?” “And four days could be fine?” Heim laughed, marveling at yet another of Lóki’s escapades. “The ways of fate are inscrutable.” A faint edge of mockery crept into Lóki’s voice. “Now tell me what’s wrong. You’ve been fidgeting in front of me for an hour like a maid on her wedding night.” Heimdallr actually blushed, caught in his own hesitation. “Something is happening, brother. The branches of the Tree tremble and dry as if sensing a coming storm. And even the earth… and the air! All of creation quivers, foretelling the approach of calamity. I told All-Father…” “Hold on!” Lóki frowned, an uneasy chill stirring in him. “Heim, tell me the pounding in my skull is nothing but the consequence of over-fermented mead.” “You hear it too?” Heimdallr looked startled. “None of the others believed me — except All-Father.” “Oh!” Lóki exclaimed with exaggerated delight. “So, it’s not just me? And this from the man who claims he never drinks himself stupid like pigs and other barnyard beasts! As for Odin — well, no surprises there.” “No, listen! The earth is humming — something is splitting the worlds apart! Hear for yourself.” Still doubtful, Lóki tore a heather bush out by the roots, flung it aside, and dropped flat onto the ground, pressing his ear to the soil and listening to the groaning depths beneath. “Convinced?” Heimdallr asked, and seeing that Lóki, though silent, accepted his words, steeled himself to deliver the worst: “Father summons you back to Asgard. All the Æsir are gathering for a decisive battle…” “With dwarves-know-who,” Lóki finished for him, rising from the wet earth and brushing off the leaves and clumps of mud clinging to his clothes. “You know what I think? I’d rather the blacksmith beat me.”