I flexed my limbs experimentally, tried the speaking-aloud thing. It worked. Still, with hindsight, I can’t help thinking that if I’d really wanted to try and blend in, I should have thought myself up some clothes.

I shivered. ‘Gog and Magog, it’s cold. Seriously, are you trying to tell me that you people choose to live out here?’

He fixed me with his one eye; blue and chilly and none too kind. Behind him, his colours showed no fear, just wariness and cunning.

‘So. You’re Loki, are you?’ he said.

I shrugged my new shoulders. ‘What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as pink and virginal. And speaking of which, if you could find your way to lending me some clothes . . .’

He did – some breeches and a shirt, taken from his backpack, and smelling rather strongly of goat. I put them on, grimacing at the smell, as my new acquaintance introduced himself as Odin, one of the sons of Bór. I knew him by reputation, of course. I’d followed his career from afar. I’d watched his dreams. I wasn’t what you’d call impressed – and yet his ambition and ruthlessness were not without potential.

We talked. He explained his position as General in Asgard; painted a pretty picture of the Sky Citadel and its inhabitants; spoke of Worlds to conquer and rich rewards to be won, then moved onto the subject of a possible alliance with my folk against the Ice People, the renegade Vanir, Gullveig-Heid and the warlords who occupied the Outlands.

I had to laugh. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

I explained that Lord Surt was really not an alliance kind of guy. ‘“Xenophobic” doesn’t begin to cover how much he despises strangers. It’s bad enough that your kind of life emerged from the ice in the first place, but you’ll never get him making a deal with a race of people that entered the Worlds naked and covered in cow-spit.’

‘But if we could talk—’ Odin began.

‘Surt doesn’t talk. He’s a primal force. He reduces Order in all its forms into its component particles. From the mightiest warlord to the tiniest ant, he hates you all impartially. Simply by virtue of being alive and conscious, you’re already an offence to him. You can’t talk him round. You can’t par-lay. All you can do, if you’ve got any sense, is simply to keep out of his way.’

Odin looked thoughtful. ‘And yet you came.’

‘Shoot me. I was curious.’