The Aesir sent messengers across the world. The messengers of the Aesir rode like the wind, and they asked each thing they encountered if it wept for Balder, so that Balder could be free of Hel’s world. The women wept, and the men, the children, and the animals. Birds of the air wept for Balder, as did the earth, the trees, the stones—even the metals the messengers encountered wept for Balder, in the way that a cold iron sword will weep when you take it from the freezing cold into the sunlight and warmth.
All things wept for Balder.
The messengers were returning from their mission, triumphant and overjoyed. Balder would soon be back among the Aesir.
They rested on a mountain, on a ledge beside a cave, and they ate their food and drank their mead, and they joked and they laughed.
“Who is that?” called a voice from inside the cave, and an elderly giantess came out. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but none of the messengers was entirely certain what it was. “I am Thokk,” she said, which means “gratitude.” “Why are you here?”
“We have asked each thing there is if it would weep for Balder, who is dead. Beautiful Balder, killed by his blind brother. For each of us misses Balder as we would miss the sun in the sky, were it never to shine again. And each of us weeps for him.”
The giantess scratched her nose, cleared her throat, and spat onto the rock.
“Old Thokk won’t weep for Balder,” she said bluntly. “Alive or dead, old Odin’s son brought me nothing but misery and aggravation. I’m glad he’s gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let Hel keep him.”
Then she shuffled back into the darkness of her cave and was lost to sight.
The messengers returned to Asgard and told the gods what they had seen, and that they had failed in their mission, for there was one creature that did not weep for Balder and did not want him to return: an old giantess in a cave on a mountain.
And by then they had also realized who old Thokk reminded them of: she had moved and talked much like Loki, the son of Laufey.
“I expect it was really Loki in disguise,” said Thor. “Of course it was Loki. It’s always Loki.”
Thor hefted his hammer, Mjollnir, and gathered a group of the gods to go looking for Loki, to take their revenge, but the crafty troublemaker was nowhere to be seen. He was hiding, far from Asgard, hugging himself in glee at his own cleverness and waiting for the fuss to die away.
THE LAST DAYS OF LOKI
I
Balder was dead, and the gods were still mourning his loss. They were sad, and the gray rains fell unceasingly, and there was no joy in the land.
Loki, when he returned from one of his journeys to distant parts, was unrepentant.
It was the time of autumn feast in Aegir’s hall, where the gods and elves were gathered to drink the sea giant’s fresh-brewed ale, brewed in the cauldron Thor had brought back from the land of the giants so long ago.
Loki was there. He drank too much of Aegir’s ale, drank himself beyond joy and laughter and trickery and into a brooding darkness. When Loki heard the gods praise Aegir’s servant, Fimafeng, for his swiftness and diligence, he sprang up from the table and stabbed Fimafeng with his knife, killing him instantly.
The horrified gods drove Loki out of the feast hall, into the darkness.
Time passed. The feasting continued, but now it was subdued.
There was a commotion at the doorway, and when the gods and goddesses turned to find out what was happening, they saw that Loki had returned. He stood in the entry to the hall staring at them, with a sardonic smile on his face.
“You are not welcome here,” said the gods.
Loki ignored them. He walked up to where Odin was sitting. “All-father. You and I mixed our blood long, long ago, did we not?”
Odin nodded. “We did.”
Loki smiled even more widely. “Did you not swear back then, great Odin, that you would drink at a banqueting table only if Loki, your sworn blood brother, drank with you?”
Odin’s good gray eye stared into Loki’s green eyes, and it was Odin who looked away.
“Let the wolf’s father feast with us,” said Odin gruffly, and he made his son Vidar move over to make room for Loki to sit down beside him.
Loki grinned with malice and delight. He called for more of Aegir’s ale and gulped it down.
One by one that night Loki insulted the gods and the goddesses. He told the gods that they were cowards, told the goddesses that they were gullible and unchaste. Each insult was woven with just enough truth to make it wound. He told them that they were fools, reminded them of things they thought were safely forgotten. He sneered and jeered and raised old scandals, and would not stop making everyone there miserable until Thor arrived at the feast.