You worked a lot of great mythology into The Timegod, but there’s one reference I always thought I missed. At the end, Loki realizes that the bell told him where everyone had gone, and he understood it due to a recent language implant. I’ve always felt like that was more significant than I was picking up on. Is that actually a reference which went over my head?

It’s not so much a reference as a hint. The bell is inscribed with a Terran language. Sammis tells Loki that he can find Baldur and Wryan, and even Sammis himself, and gestures to the bell before he vanishes. The inference is that all the Scandinavian myths in our world come from Baldur, Sammis, and Wryan… because that’s where they went from Query.