At first I’d assumed that Sigyn was mentioned simply as the only one who might stay loyal to my interests. Now I realized that the truth was more literal – I was apparently stuck with her from now until the End of the Worlds. I could expect nothing more from her. I went over the fragment of text again, checking the small print for loopholes.

I see one bound beneath the court,
Under the Cauldron of Rivers.
The wretch looks like Loki . . .
The wretch looks like Loki.
Looks like Loki.
Looks like Loki.

I thought about that for a long time. Why that phrase? I asked myself. To fit the metre of the verse? Or for some other reason, as yet unknown?

The wretch looks like Loki.

I suffered. I screamed.

The wretch looks like Loki.

I slept. I dreamed.

Lesson 12 Dream

LESSON 12

Dream

What is it that the slave dreams?
He dreams of being the master.

Lokabrenna

DREAM IS A RIVER that runs through Nine Worlds, even Death and Damnation. Even the damned can dream – in fact, it’s a part of their torment. To escape, even for a second or two, to forget reality and drift, only to be yanked back into the waking world like a fish caught on a line . . .

Yes. In some ways that’s even worse than to have no relief at all. That second or two, on awakening, when anything still seems possible, including the possibility that the past few days – or weeks, or months – might themselves have been a dream . . .

And then it hits you in the eyes. This is real. This is now. And dreams are just ephemera. In such a case you might almost be forgiven for trying not to dream at all, for refusing to swallow the barb of hope that catches at the back of your throat. But I had the germ of an idea. Not quite a plan – not yet. Not quite. But the hope of escape had not yet quite abandoned me.

It was the phrasing of that verse. The wretch looks like Loki. Not he is Loki, but he looks like Loki. Looks like Loki. Raising the faint possibility that Loki himself may be somewhere else.

That would be nice, I told myself. If only I could make that work. But how could I seem to be in one place while actually being somewhere else?

Dream was the only answer. If I could somehow escape through Dream, leaving my physical Aspect behind, then maybe I could be free again. Free to rejoin Chaos, maybe; free of Odin’s vengeance.