Loki screamed and contorted, writhing and twisting in pain. He tried to get out of the way, to move his head from beneath the poison. The bonds that had once been the entrails of his own son held him tightly.
One by one the gods left that place, with grimly satisfied looks on their faces. Soon only Kvasir was left. Sigyn looked at her bound husband and at the disemboweled corpse of her wolf-murdered son.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Kvasir. “You are not being punished. You may do whatever you wish.” And then even he left that place.
Another drop of the serpent’s venom dripped onto Loki’s face, and he screamed and threw himself about, writhing in his bonds. The earth itself shook at Loki’s threshing.
Sigyn took her bowl and went to her husband. She said nothing—what was there to say?—but she stood beside Loki’s head, with tears in her eyes, and caught each drop of poison as it fell from the snake’s fangs into her bowl.
This all happened long, long ago, in time out of mind, in the days when the gods still walked the earth. So long ago that the mountains of those days have worn away and the deepest lakes have become dry land.
Sigyn still waits beside Loki’s head as she did then, staring at his beautiful, twisted face.
The bowl she holds fills slowly, one drop at a time, but eventually the poison fills the bowl to the brim. It is then and only then that Sigyn turns away from Loki. She takes the bowl and pours the venom away, and while she is gone, the snake’s poison falls onto Loki’s face and into his eyes. He convulses then, jerks and judders, jolts and twists and writhes, so much that the whole earth shakes.
When that happens, we here in Midgard call it an earthquake.
They say that Loki will be bound there in the darkness beneath the earth, and Sigyn will be with him, holding the bowl to catch the poison above his face and whispering that she loves him, until Ragnarok comes and brings the end of days.
RAGNAROK:
THE FINAL DESTINY OF THE GODS
I
Until now I have told you of things that have happened in the past—things that happened a long time ago.
Now I shall tell you of the days to come.
I shall tell you how it will end, and then how it will begin once more. These are dark days I will tell you of, dark days and hidden things, concerning the ends of the earth and the death of the gods. Listen, and you will learn.
This is how we will know that the end times are upon us. It will be far from the age of the gods, in the time of men. It will happen when the gods all sleep, every god but all-seeing Heimdall. He will watch everything as it begins, although he will be powerless to prevent what he sees from happening.
It will begin with the winter.
This will not be a normal winter. The winter will begin, and it will continue, winter following winter. There will be no spring, no warmth. People will be hungry and they will be cold and they will be angry. Great battles will take place, all across the world.
Brothers will fight brothers, fathers will kill sons. Mothers and daughters will be set against each other. Sisters will fall in battle with sisters, and will watch their children murder each other in their turn.
This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no better than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places where the humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation.
Then, when the few remaining people are living like animals, the sun in the sky will vanish, as if eaten by a wolf, and the moon will be taken from us too, and no one will be able to see the stars any longer. Darkness will fill the air, like ashes, like mist.
This will be the time of the terrible winter that will not end, the Fimbulwinter.
There will be snow driving in from all directions, fierce winds, and cold colder than you have ever imagined cold could be, an icy cold so cold your lungs will ache when you breathe, so cold that the tears in your eyes will freeze. There will be no spring to relieve it, no summer, no autumn. Only winter, followed by winter, followed by winter.
After that there will come the time of the great earthquakes. The mountains will shake and crumble. Trees will fall, and any remaining places where people live will be destroyed.
The earthquakes will be so great that all bonds and shackles and fetters will be destroyed.
All of them.
Fenrir, the great wolf, will free himself from his shackles. His mouth will gape: his upper jaw will reach the heavens, the lower jaw will touch the earth. There is nothing he cannot eat, nothing he will not destroy. Flames come from his eyes and his nostrils.
Where Fenris Wolf walks, flaming destruction follows.