I held his gaze, but refused to be stampeded into offering anything. If Loki wanted to name a price, let him. I could always try for Sleipnir without his help. It was obvious the horse visited here occasionally.
Loki studied my silent form. Then his voice came again, a silky whisper of approval. "Very good. I begin to see why you have made it this far." He cleared his throat, and got down to the serious business of bargaining. "Now, what kind of price would I be wanting, you're asking yourself. There is the obvious, of course."
I waited, affecting the posture of a stone gargoyle.
"I could really use a bath."
"A what?"
I was nearly as startled as I'd been when Baldr first spoke to me from the bank of the Gjoll.
"A bath, man. A bath. You do know what a bath is?" he added dubiously, staring at my filthy, mended clothes. "Do you have the slightest idea how many centuries it's been since I was clean?"
I thought about the effect of freezing water expanding inside the links of that chain, and shook my head.
"I'm afraid not. Even if I could find any, water'd freeze solid before I could get it here." It was a small lie, since I could probably have managed to douse him before it solidified; but it was a good excuse.
"Ah, well, I suppose it might, at that." His eyes glinted. I hadn't fooled him for an instant. "You might give me a shirt to keep off the worst of the chill."
"I might. But I couldn't get it onto you under those tight chains, could I?"
"No, I don't imagine you could. Pesky things, really. I should've broken them long ago; I just didn't bother. I don't suppose you could sort of shift them a little, scratch under them and maybe let me ease a few muscle cramps?"
The chains around his shoulders wouldn't move any farther down across the broad expanse of his chest, and to move them toward his head would've given him room to wriggle loose.
I shook my head. "I'd rather not come any closer to those snakes. This nag of mine is nervous enough—and if I dismount, he'll be gone before I can grab him."
Loki's eyes narrowed savagely. "Well, now, it's an uncooperative sort you are, isn't it?"
Sigyn turned to dump her bowl. Venom splashed onto his nose, burning a bloody path across his cheek. The illusion of youthful beauty vanished abruptly. His scarred face and body were even more repulsive by contrast. Loki shrieked. The ground heaved. How my horse kept his feet was beyond me. At least the last time venom had hit Loki, I'd still been safely hidden. What had Baldr said about wild mood swings?
"Get out! Get out!" echoed somewhere behind my eyelids.
Unfortunately, Loki chose that moment to raise his head. He didn't even bother to project the illusion of health this time.
"All right, mortal"—his voice was again a harsh rasp—"you don't seem to want any of my bargains. Strike one of your own, if you want my help. I do not think you have much hope of succeeding without it."
Hel was every inch her father's daughter—and something told me that Loki was a thousand times more dangerous than Death.
I considered my very few options, and settled on, "Help me trap Sleipnir, and I'll kill your worst enemy."
"Odin?" he gasped. His laughter shrieked nearly as loudly as his screams had. It bounced off the overhang and set the vipers to agitated motion. Venom poured onto him. Loki's screams and struggles threw my horse into blind panic. I had my hands full trying to stay on his back while he slipped and slid on uneven, icy ground.
By the time he stood quietly—blowing and sweating and trembling—Loki's laughter had subsided. I took as a bad sign the withering glare he turned in my direction.
"And what good is that bastard's death if I'm not there to relish it? Damn you to an icy tomb, mortal, if you think I'll give up one precious second of that revenge. I'll see him torn to shreds before my eyes if it's the last thing I do while still breathing!"
My brain demanded immediate retreat from this worse-than-hellish place. I held my ground stubbornly. I was determined to get as much information out of Loki as possible before abandoning my initial plan. So maybe lack of adequate food and sleep had made me terminally stupid.
"I'll tell you what good it is," I countered. "With Odin dead, before Ragnarok, who's to say you'd have to die, either? Seems to me a chance at freedom and revenge—with the sure knowledge you don't have to die to get it—beats lying there on that slab of rock, cursing till your voice bleeds."
Loki's wild eyes reflected shock. "You really believe you can kill him."
I gave him a short, hard laugh. "Would I be here if I didn't?"
"You're mad. Madder than I. Stupid little man, do you think you—a groveling worm in the dust of the earth—can hope to succeed where I, the great Loki, failed? Have you any brain at all in that shriveled, shrinking body of yours? Without my help, you and your pitiful kind would be animals rutting in the dust, grubbing for maggots! Having created you, given you brains, must I think for you as well? Can you even piss on yourself without help?"
"What, name calling? Point for point, Loki, I'm already doing one helluva lot better than you did. I'm not the one chained to a rock."
"SILENCE!" Loki was literally frothing at the mouth. "When I am free, your puny race will be squashed like the dung beetles they are! Why that one-eyed fool gave Midgard to the likes of you..." He spat out the final word, and seemed almost to choke on it, he was so overcome with rage.
I forced a feral grin. "I'd say we earned it. I've made my counteroffer, Loki. Give me Sleipnir, I'll give you Odin, on a platter. What about it?"
He said nothing at all. His eyes were mere slits of darkness. When he spoke again, his voice was cold.
"Go to the dwarves for Ur metal, fool. Get chains of it. Nothing else will hold my traitorous offspring. Trade them silver, or daughters if you have them. Then take yourself from my sight and wait for Sleipnir to return." A wheeze of mirth broke from him again. "If you can outlive the wait! There's no living food in Niflhel. None but your own flesh. How hungry will you get?"
I laughed. "No living food? Broiled snake's a real delicacy. Didn't you know?"
"Snake?" Loki's eyes had shot wide again. "You would—?"
"Hell, yes, I'd eat snake. It doesn't taste half bad. Okay, I go find some dwarves, and wrangle a few yards of Urd-metal chain from them, then wait for Sleipnir. Great plan. There's only one flaw."
A look of insane rage was creeping into his eyes.
"Care to point out the direction to the nearest dwarves?"
Venom seared his left leg. A howl broke from Loki's lips. It took the form of a single word: "Die!"
I groped blindly for the rifle; but nothing happened. That didn't matter. I yanked the Armalite clear, anyway, and reached for the release on the pack straps, thinking to ditch the bulky nuisance—
I stopped... and stared.
Sigyn had gone rigid. She glanced at her belly. I did too. Both of us stared. She was pregnant. And growing rounder by the second. Her tattered shift split and fell from scarred shoulders, revealing breasts that once had been smooth and round as honeydews. A contraction rippled visibly across her swollen belly. Then she fell to the ground, giving birth right there amidst screams of pain and falling venom.
The child flopped onto the ground. I gaped, unable to believe what I was seeing. It looked like a bear. Sort of...
The goddess was screaming mindlessly. In less time than it took to think about it, another child flopped on the ground beside its—brother? Which was already the size of a brown bear and rapidly approaching that of a king grizzly.