They did not care much about what happened with Coach Lieder, because Danny didn’t actually care that much. It was a part of the high school life that he had desired, but since arranging to come to Parry McCluer, things had become quite strange, and the whole enterprise of American public education seemed a little pointless to Danny. Homework? Really? A track team? He was going through the motions now.

To him, the only thing real about high school was his friends. His feelings about them—and Loki’s gates agreed. About them they had suggestions, though mostly they reinforced his own intentions. Don’t let Xena think for a moment that you return her imaginary affection—check. Pat might be something real; don’t mess with her or hurt her if you can help it. Check. Trust Hal, because he can be counted on, but recognize that Wheeler is the slave of impulse and doesn’t know how to keep his word. Right, right.

Now, as he ran from the grounds of Rockbridge High, up to the crest of Greenhouse Road and then down the steep slope toward the nursery that gave the road its name, he found that Loki’s gates were the music giving meaning and rhythm to his running.

Education, that was the idea they were talking about. Learning. He needed to learn. But they were not talking about calculus or social studies. There were things that Loki’s gates thought that he absolutely had to know, and didn’t know.

So he asked them, silently: What should I know?

Belmage. Danger of the Belmage. The danger that made us close all gates, prevent all Great Gates. Danger of the Belmage.

Immediately Danny remembered the Fistalk inscription quoted in that book in the Library of Congress. “Here Loki twisted a new gate to heaven.… Here Odin crushed the might of Carthage until the survivors wept in the blood of their children.” Nasty stuff. An earlier time.

Oh, like Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden were any better.

That was not Loki’s gates talking—what would they know of that? It was an interruption from Danny’s own observer-self, criticizing his own conscious thoughts. “Nasty stuff, earlier time” had provoked his deep self to push a thought to the surface, refuting his own foolish conclusion. Of course, the moment the thought came to the surface, it became his conscious thought, while the observer-self continued to lurk in the background.

But now he felt the prodding of Loki’s gates. Yes yes yes, they were saying. Think about that. That’s what you need to think about.

What? Danny demanded. What was I thinking about?

That’s how Loki’s gates differed from his own deep self—he never didn’t know what his observer-self was responding to. But Loki’s gates were still not himself. They were his, they served him, but they were not truly a part of him.