The Lokistone

Lokistone 3

For the FIRST section, I listened to "Norwegian Folk Song-Tor Jaran " 

For the LAST section, I listened to "Gladiator Soundtrack: Sorrow."

Enjoy!

CHAPTER THREE

"If you don't get lost, there's a chance you may never be found."

~Author Unknown

Snap.

The soft, swirling mist became a whiplash of icy wind.

Rocks solidified under Jane's feet.

The numbing haze of the fog vanished—replaced by the immediate, unsteady sensation of standing completely still—

At the top of somewhere very, very high.

Jane took a breath—she suddenly realized she'd been holding it. Her forehead tightened. It felt like a hand and forearm wrapped around her whole head, the fingers pressing against her face—her forehead touching metal. Shivering, she blinked her eyes open.

She stared down at jagged gray rocks beneath her boots. Her feet stood between another set of tall black boots. A tattered green cape rustled against both their legs. Both her hands, one still holding the amulet, clamped down on a leather hem at the front of the waist of a towering black form. Her forehead was leaning against the center of his cold breastplate.

Jane's awareness came rushing back. She gasped—

He let go of her. She yanked herself backward. Her heel slipped on a rock—she threw out her arms to keep from falling down.

Her gaze jerked up to see him.

He stood tall, stark and vivid against the colorless sky—his black hair wild in the wind, his angular face white as snow, his bright, unearthly eyes searching the horizon, his brow snarled in a disconcerted frown. She could see every detail of his finely-wrought armor now, though the cold light dulled the gold and the emerald, and faded the shine of the metal. Gray circles surrounded his eyes—his lips were gray.

He clamped his fists as his eyes widened, flitting back and forth like a hawk's. His mouth tightened—he swept his gaze across the distance.

"Where are we?" he demanded, low and rough.

Jane's eyes abruptly focused past him.

Immense sky, devoid of any buildings.

She turned her head to the right...

And let her breath out in a long, slow rush.

To the right, just five feet away from their boots, the granite ground fell away in a sharp cliff...

To plunge downward into a limitless, dizzying abyss.

And then, thousands of feet across that fathomless gap, the earth soared upward, climbing to the heavens as a vast, endless chain of mountains. The peaks knifed into the sky like rows of dragon's teeth, every edge jagged and harsh. Jane couldn't spot even a sprig of a bush or a single twisted tree, though moss grew between the rocks like veins of ore. Fingers of fog skulked between the mountains' knees; faraway, low and silent as ghosts. Clouds, like pale slate, covered the tall sky from edge to edge. Icy, wet wind gusted Jane's hair and clothes, biting her jeans.

And then, as one blast rushed through her, she flooded with recognition.

"I've been here before," she gasped, squeezing both the necklace and the collar of her jacket.

"Norge," Loki said.

Jane blinked as that name echoed through her mind, her lips parting, as she stared across the endless, lifeless range of peaks.