Loki by Mike Vasich

they knew what he really was, but if he had fooled Heimdall, no others would discover him. And even though he was a sworn enemy, he would have honored the bargain. He would have finished rebuilding their wall, better and stronger than it had been built before.
    He would not enter with a proposal this time.
    He pushed open the massive wooden doors of Gladsheim. Where its entryway had been several heads above him before, the top of his head now scraped it.
    The Aesir were assembled, as he knew they would be. They laughed as they saw him, and he felt his blood boil. His sides itched and felt as if something were trying to burrow its way out of his torso. His legs foundered, each step harder to make than the one before. He released the chaos, feeling the tendrils of sorcery peel away from him like a second skin. The Aesir became more and more ugly with every step he took. He did not see powerful figures in shining mail, but misshapen dwarfs with small heads and tiny hands that were too small for their bodies.
    One stood at the front of the hall. The mason could no longer recall his name—his memories were fast dimming to be replaced by bitter rage—but he recognized him from his one eye and long beard. He was tall and held a spear, but thin, as if a strong breeze might knock him down. He spoke, but the mason had difficulty understanding the words. One Eye threw a bag at his feet and its contents spilled out. He looked down at the shiny yellow circles and wondered what he was supposed to do with these useless things.
    He heard his clothes tearing as he outgrew them, could feel his skull expanding. New arms emerged bloodily from his torso, and he felt the ground under new legs that stood beside the old ones. The feel of cold stone on his newly sprouted bare feet stimulated him, and a smile crossed his misshapen face. He felt satisfaction in seeing the smug looks wiped from their faces as his head was pressed down by the wood and slate ceiling above him. The sound of rending timber and breaking slate was accompanied by the night air rushing in, and the moonlight illuminated the dust falling in around him. The little creatures continued to shrink and shrink, their features full with alarm and their hands grasping their tiny weapons.
    He felt the chaos finish shaping him into the essence of what he was, and he had two overpowering thoughts. He saw the one he had come for, the one he had desired, and he felt a hot flush pass through him. He would still have her. His second thought was to crush the bones of the foul little creatures around him, to pound their flesh until they were no more than red stains on the ground. In the distance he registered a horn blow, but his blood-haze of anger quickly emptied the sound of all meaning, and he advanced upon the tiny things surrounding him.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
    Heimdall could hear that something was amiss. It was not the rebuilding of the wall; construction had ceased. The cacophony of the mason’s furious efforts had drowned out virtually all else in the Nine Worlds since his arrival nearly six months ago. But now it was finished. He had noticed the lack of thunderous hoofbeats reverberating throughout Asgard for the past three days, and wondered what had happened to the mason’s horse. The mason himself toiled on. Heimdall could hear each plodding step, laden with the weight of scores of building stones being pulled behind in an immense net.
    He had missed the silence of the time before the mason had come, and was glad that it had returned. For a too brief time—hours, only—the pounding and lifting and slamming of block on block had ceased, and he was able to once more hear the rub of crickets’ legs, the soft footfall of deer in the surrounding woods, the low throbbing of ants marching back to their hills. His senses felt reawakened, as if he was once more hearing all these things for the first time. But it did not last long.
    At first there was the strange noise of