Free Loki by Mike Vasich Page B

Yggdrasil, although it was strange that he had not seen it in the distance before suddenly coming upon it.
    Yggdrasil, despite its mass, did not appear completely solid. He could see through it at times, and it pulsed from corporeal to transient, fading in and out as though it could not decide if it wanted to exist or not. He felt the way he imagined a gnat might feel when standing at the foot of a mountain. He could not even comprehend its immensity, but he felt waves of power and life emanating from it.
    The grain of its wood where exposed by torn bark was wider than the front gates of Asgard. There was depth there as well. He could walk into the channeled grain of the tree and follow a path into Yggdrasil itself. Despite its appearance it felt solid, and his fingers tingled when he touched it, as if energy was being released. He stepped into the tree, plunging into the depths of the oldest and largest thing to ever exist.
     
    He was engulfed in blackness and lost all sense of direction and time. The only thing he was aware of—other than himself—was an oppressive presence that pervaded his body, like a deep, thrumming heartbeat, the consciousness of a being that had existed since the dawn of time. It grew and threatened to overwhelm him, saturating each of his senses to the point where he could not tell where he ended and the entity began.
    And then it was gone.
    He had no idea how much time had passed while he hovered in nothingness, but it had seemed as if time had been suspended. An instant had lasted an eternity. With difficulty, he put it out of his mind, forcing himself to contemplate the task and forget the pervasiveness of Yggdrasil's consciousness. It was not as difficult as he would have thought to do, for as he got to his feet he found that the memories and feelings were fading as quickly as if they were dreams.
    The last remnants of the experience slipping away, he took in his surroundings. He stood on the edge of an enormous cavern. He looked up and saw bright stars dot the skyscape above him. He wondered if he were still inside the tree at all, or if he had been taken someplace else. The ground was covered by a fine mist which swirled slowly around a central point in the distance.
    The mist was thick at his feet and barely moved as he walked through it. As he got closer to the center he could see that the mist emanated from a large hole that stretched a stone’s throw from one side to the other. Whispered voices surrounded him as he stepped closer to what he realized must be the Well of Urd. He peered over the edge, but his eyes could not pierce its depths.
    The voices were disembodied and faint, a jumbled mess of barely recognized words and phrases, although he would occasionally catch bits that sounded familiar. There were different tones and emotions in the voices; he could hear sorrow and confusion, joy and ecstasy, anger and fury. He looked around him, but saw no one. He walked carefully around the well.
    He paused when the mist stirred. Tendrils rose up slowly, forming a vaguely human shape in front of him. It was a ghostly woman, insubstantial and incomplete, the connections between body parts only vague or suggested. Two other similar shapes formed on either side.
    “ Child of chaos . . .”
    “ Harbinger of twilight . . .”
    “ Thief of time . . .”
    They opened their mouths to speak, but the voices came from everywhere at once, resonating throughout the cavern. Their forms shifted as they addressed him, folding in upon themselves and reforming.
    He narrowed his eyes. It was clear that they addressed him, but he didn't understand their allusions. He was intrigued, however, wondering what their import might be. He pushed it from his mind; he was here to find an answer to the problem of the mason, not to decipher riddles.
    “ You are the Norns?” he asked.
    The shapes swirled and blended into one, then collapsed, folding into the mist at his feet. There was a cool breeze on the back of his