See, this is the thing about history. His story. That’s all it is. The Old Man’s version of events, which basically the rest of us are supposed to accept as the undisputed truth. Well, call me cynical, but I’ve never been one to take things on trust, and I happen to know that history is nothing but spin and metaphor, which is what all yarns are made up of, when you strip them down to the underlay. And what makes a hit or a myth, of course, is how that story is told, and by whom.

Most of what we know as history came to us from a single text: ‘The Prophecy of the Oracle’. It’s an old text, in an old language, and for a long time it was pretty much all the knowledge we had. From beginning to end, the Oracle and the Old Man had it all worked out between them; which made it all the more galling that we only found out what it really meant when it was too late for all of us.

But we’ll get to that soon enough.

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones’, as they say in the Middle Worlds, but with the right words you can build a world and make yourself the king of it. King, or even god – which brings us back to the Old Man; that master storyteller; keeper of runes; lord of poetry; scribe of First and Last Times. Creationists would have us believe that every word of his story is true. But ‘poetic licence’ was always the Old Man’s middle name. Of course, he has a lot of names. So do I. And because this isn’t history, but mystery – my story – let’s start with me for a change. Others have already had their chance to tell their version of events. This is mine.

I’m calling it Lokabrenna, or in rough translation, the Gospel of Loki. Loki, that’s me. Loki, the Light-Bringer, the misunderstood, the elusive, the handsome and modest hero of this particular tissue of lies. Take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s at least as true as the official version and, dare I say it, more entertaining. So far, history, such as it is, has cast me in a rather unflattering role. Now it’s my turn to take the stage.

Let

there

be

light.

Book 1 Light

Lesson 1 Fire and Ice

LESSON 1

Fire and Ice

Never trust a ruminant . . .

Lokabrenna

ALL OF US CAME FROM FIRE AND ICE. Chaos and Order. Light and dark. In the beginning – or back in the day – there was fire coming out of a hole in the ice, bringing disruption, turmoil and change. Change isn’t always comfortable, but it is a fact of life. And that’s where life as we know it began, as the fires of World Below pierced the ice of World Above.