Three Gods Fall

Three gods walked along a branch. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, and it was, though none of them knew it yet.

Thor walked first. He always walked first, out of impatience. Loki walked in the middle, where he could keep an eye on Thor ahead and Heimdallr behind, because Loki felt most comfortable knowing where everyone was. Heimdallr walked last and listened, as he always listened, to everything and everyone and nothing, and sometimes he wondered if there was a limit to how much a god can hear.

The sun was low. It pressed itself between the branches and shone straight into the faces of all three, and all three raised a hand to shield themselves, and at that exact moment Thor stumbled.

He stumbled on Mjölnir. The hammer had slipped from his shoulder and lay across the branch in front of his feet, and Thor kicked into it with his full divine weight and swore and lost his balance. Loki, who had never missed a chance to laugh at Thor, turned to look and stumbled on his own shadow, which fell the wrong way, because Loki's shadow had never behaved as it should. Heimdallr heard them both fall and stepped back and struck Gjallarhorn against a branch and lost his footing.

They fell. All three. Through leaves and branches and the whipping of twigs and the howling of wind they fell along the trunk of Yggdrasil, and none of them fell quietly. Thor swore. Loki screamed. Heimdallr said nothing but it was loud anyway.

Yggdrasil is big. People say that often and it means nothing, because nobody who says it understands what it means. The trunk is so broad you can walk for days without getting around it. The roots reach in all directions, down into wells and rivers and darkness that has never seen light, and between the roots are ravines and hollows large as halls.

Thor landed on the north side. He landed hard, in moss and earth, with Mjölnir under his back, and he lay still for a moment and stared up into the canopy and tried to understand what had happened. Loki landed on the west side, in something wet that he did not want to examine more closely. Heimdallr landed on the east side, softer than the others, because Heimdallr always landed softer, and he stood and brushed himself off and listened.

But he heard nothing. That is, he heard everything he always heard. Leaves. Wind. Water. Distant voices. The wings of insects. The creaking of the tree. But not Thor and not Loki, because the trunk of Yggdrasil stood between them like a wall of living wood, thicker than mountains, and sound went around it no better than light.

'Thor!' called Heimdallr. Nothing. 'Loki!' Nothing. His voice disappeared into the bark like rain into soil.

Thor had gotten up and kicked the trunk. 'Fuck,' he said, and kicked again. It did not help, but it felt better. 'Loki! Heimdallr!' The trunk swallowed his voice.

Loki sat in the wet and thought. He thought quickly, because Loki always thought quickly, and he arrived at three things: that he was alone, that he did not know where the others were, and that he did not like it.

Ratatoskr saw everything. He sat up in the crown and had watched them stumble and fall and land on different sides, and his eyes glittered and his heart beat faster, because this was better than he had dared hope for. Three gods. Confused and separated. He ran downward.

Ratatoskr came to Thor first. Thor was standing kicking a root and looked like a man searching for someone to hit. 'I saw you fall,' said Ratatoskr. 'I know where the others are.' Thor looked down. 'Good. Run and tell them to come here.' 'That is not how it works,' said Ratatoskr. 'I am a messenger. You ask a question, I run there and ask, run back with the answer.' Thor stared at him. 'Why can you not just tell them to come here?' 'It is the procedure,' said Ratatoskr. He had no procedure. He had never had a procedure. But the word sounded good and Thor was too tired to question it. 'Fuck. Ask Heimdallr where he is. Tell him I am on the north side. Tell him to go right.' 'North side, go right, got it,' said Ratatoskr, and ran.

He found Heimdallr on the east side. Heimdallr stood with his hands behind his back, listening in all directions and looking worried, which was unusual, because Heimdallr rarely looked like anything at all. 'Message from Thor,' said Ratatoskr, and cleared his throat. 'He says, and I quote: you are a useless bloody watchman who cannot even stand on a branch without falling off like a drunk crow.' Heimdallr looked down at the squirrel. 'Thor said that?' 'Word for word.' 'That does not sound like Thor.' 'He was upset,' said Ratatoskr. 'He also said it was your fault. That you should have heard the branch was rotten. That you should have warned them. That he intends to speak with Odin about it.' None of it was true. Thor had said 'north side' and 'go right.' But Ratatoskr had never delivered a message without improving it, and in his mouth, improving meant the same thing as poisoning.

Heimdallr's jaw tightened. 'Tell Thor that I heard everything he said on the way down. Every curse. Every plea. Tell him that a man who cries for his mother when he falls should perhaps be quiet about other people's shortcomings.' He had heard it. It was true. Thor had, somewhere between the fourth and fifth branch, called for his mother. Ratatoskr memorised it with delight and ran back to Thor. 'Heimdallr says you wept like a child all the way down,' said Ratatoskr. 'He says he heard you call for your mother and that all of Yggdrasil heard it and that it was embarrassing.' Thor's face turned red. 'I did not call for my mother.' He had called for his mother. 'Tell that bastard that if he says it one more time I will cave his face in.'

Ratatoskr ran to Loki. Loki was still sitting in the wet and had given up trying to move and instead decided it was not so bad, though his expression said it was. 'News,' said Ratatoskr. 'Thor and Heimdallr are quarrelling. Thor is threatening to cave Heimdallr's face in. Heimdallr is calling Thor a crybaby.' Loki raised an eyebrow. 'They are quarrelling already? We have been down here for fifteen minutes.' 'Gods,' said Ratatoskr, and shrugged. 'Which direction are they?' asked Loki. 'Thor is behind you. Heimdallr is to the left.' Both were wrong. 'And one more thing,' said Ratatoskr. 'Thor said all of this was your fault. That your shadow dragged them down. That you probably did it on purpose.' Loki smiled. It was a thin smile. 'Did he say that?' 'Both of them, actually. They agree on that point.' Loki stood up slowly. 'Right,' he said. 'Right.'

Ratatoskr ran between them like a shuttle in a loom. Back to Heimdallr: 'Thor says he will knock you flat with Mjölnir when he finds you, and Loki agrees.' Back to Thor: 'Loki has started walking the wrong way on purpose and Heimdallr refuses to move on principle, he says you should come to him.' Back to Loki: 'They have decided to leave you here. Heimdallr said they are better off without you. Thor said nothing, but he nodded.' Every message was like a snowball he rolled through shit on the way. It got bigger. It got worse. And he delivered it with the same serious face every time, because Ratatoskr had understood something that most liars never learn: you should never smile when you lie.

It did not take long before Thor was furious. This time it had been unusually fast. He stood by the trunk with a red face and shaking hands and lifted Mjölnir and struck it against the bark of Yggdrasil. The boom echoed through the entire tree. Leaves fell. Squirrels who were not Ratatoskr fled.

Heimdallr heard it. Through the ground, through the roots, through the earth under his feet. He understood. He started walking toward the sound.

Loki heard it too. He had already begun to suspect the squirrel was lying, because Loki recognised a liar when he saw one. He had seen enough of them in the mirror. He followed the sound.

Thor struck again. And again. He struck because he was angry and because it was the only thing he could do with his anger, but this time it worked.

They found each other at the foot of the trunk. Thor with Mjölnir in hand and sweat on his brow, Heimdallr with soil on his knees, Loki with his clothes wet from something he still refused to talk about. They looked at each other. 'The squirrel lied,' said Loki. 'I know,' said Heimdallr. 'Fucking squirrel,' said Thor.

Ratatoskr sat on a branch above and looked down. He had hoped it would last longer. Three gods, and still it had only been enough for one morning. He was a little disappointed. But only a little, because it had been a really good morning.

They climbed up. Thor first, because Thor always went first. Loki in the middle. Heimdallr last. And Ratatoskr ran past them upward with his tail in the air, because he had messages to deliver and lies to polish and there was plenty of day left.