Dressed in my bedclothes, I sat on the bed and crossed my legs under me. I closed my eyes, set the intention to relax, and started counting breaths.

I felt the tension melt out of my face and neck, my arms and legs. I drew it toward my body, into my lungs. I imagined that I was breathing it out like smoke. One round of that left me feeling pretty good but I set the same intention again and started counting from the top, breathing as slowly and as deeply as I found comfortable. I began getting that floaty feeling that I always got in a trance. My body was pleasantly still.

Next I focused inward, on my mind's eye. I pictured myself standing in front of my reflection. I could see it now, a full-length mirror in an ornate brass frame. And I could see myself in it too. I was wearing a gray suit.

I took another ten breaths to focus on the image. Like Loki had said, all results were valid, so I didn't try to force anything to happen. I just opened my senses and opened myself to being surprised. I let the details come to me without effort.

I started hearing running water. Like, a lot of running water. It rippled and it flowed and it lapped at the edges. The sound was muted because of all the vegetation on the banks. I heard splashing as a flock of birds took flight. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was the same, but I was no longer standing in a dark, featureless room.

Loki coughed. "When you're ready, please join me." He was in his guise as a red-haired Tom Hiddleston.

I'd done this before so I no longer questioned it. I stepped forward and went into the mirror, which felt like plunging face-first into water. I passed through to the other side and that felt like climbing out of a pool. I stepped onto the damp earth on a riverbank. My patron god was waiting with a little boat. Or rather, a boat-shaped raft. It was made of reeds, five long bundles held together with sticks and rope.

"Let me guess," I said. "The rental place charged too much?"

He gave me a long-suffering look and picked up an oar. "Get in, wizard."

* * *

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Set's place," he said. "It's game night and it's his turn to host."

I thought about that. "Why am I coming along? Do the gods really enjoy playing games with mortals?"

"Why do I take you to anything at all? Because a mortal witness makes it real. Dunno if it's quantum but it helps to have an incarnate mind to set things in history. Zeus is divorcing Hera, by the way."

"He is?"

"Took him long enough, I think. Let it be known."

Loki rowed along for a bit before he spoke again. "It's like the thing with the Judgment of Paris. You know that one?"

"Something about an apple and a beauty contest?"

"That's it. Eris, goddess of strife, was pissed about not being invited to a wedding so she dropped a golden apple on which was written 'For the most beautiful.' This started an argument among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and it fell to Zeus to choose.

"And he chose to delegate."

"This was his wife and two of his daughters -- no man wants that kind of trouble. It was a difficult task anyway, since few goddesses present themselves as anything but their absolute best."

Loki looked thoughtful. “Sometimes you just have to muddle through. Sometimes what you need is a flawed being making a flawed judgment in a hurry. So they found a mortal whose judgment was actually quite good.”

"Didn’t the goddesses immediately bribe him?

"Yup! Thus setting a precedent for all future beauty contests." He laughed. "Nobody came out of that story looking very good."

He rowed quietly for a bit. "Mortal choices matter, my friend. They shape the world. It's why gods mostly work through people."

". . . All right. How does Zeus divorcing Hera work?"

"She stays queen but no longer has any claim on Zeus's affections. And if the big guy should decide to be born again, she can't incarnate for the purposes of marrying him."

"She does that?"

"Oh yes. Made the history books a few times. Famously bad marriages. But she does love him."

I gazed into the water, and for a moment I saw two slender figures holding hands and then embracing.

"It always starts off wonderfully. And the kids follow soon after. And then things start to go wrong. You were married, Charlie, you know how it goes."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, Maricel and I were never technically married, but we lived as man and wife. What about you?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Angrboda."

"Oh, yeah."

There was a sigh. "I'm probably the bad guy in this story, but I remember when I could walk into the Ironwood Forest without calling ahead. And I fucking love that forest."

We sat for a while, just thinking about how some marriages ended up.

"Wait, didn't Paris start a war? Loki, are we about to start a war?"

"Maybe just a small one."

* * *

We'd been going down the river for a while when Loki steered us into a canal. It was big and only its sharp straight lines distinguished it from a natural waterway. We disembarked at a wharf where our was the only craft, even if it was large enough for full-sized ships.

"Where are we?" I asked.

He said nothing as he climbed up the stone steps. We were in a sort of palace complex. I could see, and feel, that there were walls in the distance separating it from the rest of the countryside. In front of us was a path leading deeper into the grounds. We followed it until we were walking down a broad avenue lined with leopard statues. In front of us was a pair of freestanding pillars, each one like an upright needle. I searched my memory and remembered that they were called obelisks. Like the Washington Monument, but carved out of a single piece of stone. Beyond the obelisks was a gate with a squat and massive tower on either side. Each started wide and thick at the base and tapered as it went up. The whole thing reminded me of the Four Doors Hotel.

We walked through the gate and into a courtyard. There was a row of columns on three sides, colonnades to the right and the left and behind us. The pillars were alternately fluted to suggest bundles of reeds or else opened up at the top with leaf designs to suggest palm trees. In front of us was a ramp leading to a platform and on the platform was a massive building.

"Some kind of temple?" I asked.

I thought it had been a Greek temple for a moment but it was broader and had a flat roof. We walked up the steps of the ramp and ventured inside.

The darkness was a shock. I hadn't realized how the sunlight had been weighing down on me. It was hot and bright outside, but here in the building it was cool and dark. Cavelike. A forest of stalactites reached down from the ceiling and joined with their counterparts on the floor. Stalagmites, that was the word. The ceiling was a long way above us but the pillars stood close together and there were more of them than there was space. There had to be, to hold up that slab of a roof.

The paved path that we'd followed since the wharf led straight through the chamber. We went through a smaller door and into a smaller chamber and then through another even smaller door and even smaller chamber. We kept going up steps so that the floor level rose with us. The ceiling was getting lower too. Sunshine still filtered in through the high windows but overall it was getting darker and cozier. It felt like we were climbing into the womb of the world.

My fingers brushed the walls as they grew nearer. I felt things carved in relief, figures that were stiff and angular and mostly in profile. They didn't all have human heads. One of the clerestory windows made a patch of light on the opposite wall and I saw a painted scene. The style was unmistakable; there were hieroglyphs too.

We stepped into an open space that reminded me of an indoor swimming pool. The outer edge was paved floor like the rest of the temple but where there would've been water there was only bright raked sand. This was no Zen garden -- Zen gardens don't have racks of practice weapons.

On the far end was a chair. It was in shadow but it seemed to be gilded, with armrests that ended in carved lion heads. It reminded me of nothing more than Conan's throne from the 1982 movie. Someone was sitting in the chair, and he had big knotty feet and thick dusty calves.

WELCOME, Set said. COME, REFRESH YOURSELVES.

He gestured to a long table. I HAVE TAKEN CARE OF THE BREAD AND THE BEER.

Loki reached into his cloak and went, "Ta-da!"

THAT IS A GIANT PLASTIC BARREL OF COTTON CANDY.

"I also brought soda," Loki said, and started pulling them out of his bottomless cloak. . "Real glass bottles, none of that corn-syrup nonsense."

"Ugh," someone said. "So much sugar."

"Real cane sugar!" Loki said.

Anansi swaggered into the room. He looked just like his portrayal in American Gods. He was a tall black man in a yet dapper suit. He was also carrying a basketful of fried chicken.

He caught my look and smiled. "I'm the only one who brings chicken. That's the rule. Certain people--" And he tilted his head at Loki, who was still fussing over a cooler. "--have tried to get my goat by bringing chicken, but what really bothers me is that they usually bring bad chicken." He raised the basket to my face. "Take a gander, my man. Or whatever."

I breathed in. The chicken smelled of brine and batter, of spices and sweet frying oil. There was the mothball scent of new train ties and the sooty stench coal-fired steam. The trains would stop and the women would come up to sell biscuits, pies, and of course fried chicken. This was after the American Civil War and before dining cars and it was an opportunity for freed slaves to climb the economic ladder.

I realized I was holding a drumstick and remembering this with every bite.

"It only hits you the first time," Anansi said. "Afterward it's just good food."

Other people were tramping into the temple's inner sanctum. A big bearded man carried in a pot of borscht. A shadow passed over the table and left behind a platter of roasted corncobs. I looked away for a moment and there was an assortment of cold cuts.

Anansi ambled away. "Hey, Loki, you got a 7UP?"

A cold wet nose pressed into my leg. I looked down at a huge black dog.

"Hey," I said.

He grinned a doggy grin and wagged his tail.

"Do you belong to anyone, or are you here by yourself?" I asked.

Loki sidled up with a plate. "Don't mind him."

The dog tilted his head. Then he started begging on his hind legs.

"Oh, fine," Loki said, and fed him a sausage roll.

I looked around. There were maybe a dozen figures in the room, although they weren't all three-dimensional. There was a shadow with red and blue stripes. It looked vaguely doglike but swirled like grease on water.

"That's Coyote," Loki said. "And the one who looks like Slavic Santa Claus is Veles. Notice a trend?"

"Trickster gods," I said. "You've brought me to a room full of superpowered maniacs."

He patted my shoulder. "No worries! Think of it as the Trickster Club. And the first rule of Trickster Club, is nobody can agree what the first rule is. But one of the other rules is we don't mess with each other's people."

"Oh, good."

"Unless it would be really funny. Because of course The Rule of Funny is part of the club charter."

I gave him a long look, then sighed. "Who else is in this club?"

"Easier to tell you who isn't. Hermes isn't. There's tricksters and then there's Tricksters."

"Why's that?" We'd wandered over to the table and I was making sure to try the flatbreads. Ancient Egypt had been one of the first bread cultures -- one of their loaves was a meal in itself.

"Plenty of gods will indulge in tricksy behavior. Isis had an entire hero's journey where she traveled in disguise. Even Odin had his moments. But to be a Trickster requires a certain philosophical outlook."

"And what's that?"

"Nobody can agree on that either. But Hermes or Mercury is out. I think we can all agree that Zeus is the real trickster in Olympus."