Not materialized, not teleported — just appeared, in the way that sometimes happened when beings of significant power chose not to bother with normal movement. One moment the road was empty. The next moment he was on it, perhaps two hundred yards out, walking toward the gate at an unhurried pace.
The senior guard — a demon veteran named Korath who had served Loki's gate for eleven years — recognized the wrongness immediately. The way the air around the approaching figure distorted slightly, the way the morning light seemed to behave differently in his immediate vicinity, older and younger and slower all at once.
"Close the gate," Korath said quietly. "Send a runner to the inner garrison. Now."
The gate came down. The portcullis dropped. The inner bolts engaged.
The man on the road kept walking.
