Six
When Shea awoke he was still sniffling, but at least his head was of normal weight. He wondered whether the chlorine he had inhaled the previous evening might not have helped the cold. Or whether the improvement were a general one, based on his determination to accept his surroundings and make the most of them.
After breakfast they set out as before, Skrymir tramping on ahead. The sky was the color of old lead. The wind was keen, rattling the branches of the scrubby trees and whirling an occasional snowflake before it. The goats slipped on patches of frozen slush, plodding uphill most of the time. The hills were all about them now, rising steadily and with more vegetation, mostly pine and spruce.
It must have been around noon—Shea could only guess at the time—when Skrymir turned and waved at the biggest mountain they had yet seen. The wind carried away the giant’s words, but Thor seemed to have understood. The goats quickened their pace toward the mountain, whose top hung in cloud.
After a good hour of climbing, Shea began to get glimpses of a shape looming from the bare crest, intermittently blotted out by the eddies of mist. When they were close enough to see it plainly, it became clearly a house, not unlike that of the bonder Sverre. But it was cruder, made of logs with the bark on, and vastly bigger—as big as a metropolitan railroad terminal.
Thjalfi said into his ear: “That will be Utgard Castle. Ye’ll need whatever mite of courage ye have here, friend Harold.” The young man’s teeth were chattering from something other than cold.
Skrymir lurched up to the door and pounded on it with his fist. He stood there for a long minute, the wind flapping his furs. A rectangular hole opened in the door. The door swung open. The chariot riders climbed down, stretching their stiff muscles as they followed their guide.
The door banged shut behind them. They were in a dark vestibule, like that in Sverre’s house but larger and foul with the odor of unwashed giant. A huge arm pushed the leather curtain aside, revealing through the triangular opening a view of roaring yellow flame and thronging, snouting giants.
Thjalfi murmured: “Keep your eyes open, Harold. As Thjodolf of Hvin says:
“All the gateways Ere one goes out
Thoughtfully should a man scan;
Uncertain it is Where sits the unfriendly
Upon the bench before thee.”
Within, the place was a disorderly parody of Sverre’s. Of the same general form, with the same benches, its tables were all uneven, filthy, and littered with fragments of food. The fire in the center hung a pall of smoke under the rafters. The dirty straw on the floor was thick about the ankles.
The benches and the passageway behind them were filled with giants, drinking, eating, shouting at the tops of their voices. Before him a group of six, with iron-gray topknots and patchy beards like Skrymir’s, were wrangling. One drew back his arm in anger. His elbow struck a mug of mead borne by a harassed-looking man who was evidently a thrall. The mead splashed onto another giant, who instantly snatched up a bowl of stew from the table and slammed it on the man’s head.
Down went the man with a squeal. Skrymir calmly kicked him from the path of his guests. The six giants burst into bubbling laughter, rolling in their seats and clapping each other on the back, their argument forgotten.
“Hai, Skridbaldnir!” Skrymir was gripping another giant on the bench by the arm. “How’s every little thing wit’ you? Commere, I wantcha to meet a friend of mine. This here guy’s Asa-Thor!”
Skridbaldnir turned. Shea noticed that he was slenderer than Skrymir, with ash-blond hair, the pink eyes of an albino, and a long, red, ulcerated nose.
“He’s a frost giant,” whispered Thjalfi, “and that gang over there are fire giants.” He waved a trembling hand toward the other side of the table, where a group of individuals like taller and straighter gorillas were howling at each other. They were shorter than the other giants, not much more than eight feet tall. They had prognathous jaws and coarse black hair where their bodies were exposed. They scratched ceaselessly.
Halfway down the hall, at one side, sat the biggest hill giant of all, in a huge chair with interwoven serpents carved on the legs and arms. His costume was distinguished from those of the other giants in that the bone skewers through his topknot had rough gold knobs on their ends. One of his lower snag teeth projected for several inches beyond his upper lip. He looked at Skrymir and said: “Hai, bud. I see you got some kids witcha. It ain’t a good idea to bring kids to these feeds; they learns bad language.”
“They ain’t kids,” said Skrymir. “They’re a couple of men and a couple of Æsir. I told ’em they could come wit’ me. That okay, boss?”
Utgardaloki picked his nose and wiped his fingers on his greasy leather jacket before replying: “I guess so. But ain’t that one with the red whiskers Asa-Thor?”
“You are not mistaken,” said Thor.
“Well, well, you don’t say so. I always thought Thor was a big husky guy.”
Thor stuck out his chest, scowling. “It is ill to jest with the Æsir, giant.”
“Ho, ho, ain’t he the cutest little fella?” Utgardaloki paused to capture a small creeping thing that had crawled out of his left eyebrow and crack it between his teeth.
“A fair arrangement,” murmured Loki in Shea’s ear. “They live on him; he lives on them.”
Utgardaloki continued ominously: “But whatcha doing here, you? This is a respectable party, see, and I don’t want no trouble.”
Thor said: “I have come for my hammer, Mjöllnir.”
“Huh? What makes ya think we got it?”
“Ask not of the tree where it got its growth or of the gods their wisdom. Will you give it up, or do I have to fight you for it?”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Öku-Thor. Sure, I’d give you your piddling nutcracker if I knew where it was.”
“Nutcracker! Why you—”
“Easy!” Shea could hear Loki’s whisper. “Son of Odinn, with the strong use strength; with the liar, lies.” He turned to Utgardaloki and bowed mockingly: “Chief of giants, we thank you for your courtesy and will not trouble you long. Trusting your word, Lord, are we to understand that Mjöllnir is not here?”
“ ’Tain’t here as far as I know,” replied Utgardaloki, spitting on the floor and rubbing his bare foot over the spot, with just a hint of uneasiness.
“Might it not have been brought hither without your knowledge?”
Utgardaloki shrugged. “How in hell should I know? I said as far as I knew. This is a hell of a way to come at your host.”
“Evidently there is no objection should the desire come upon us to search the place.”
“Huh? You’re damn right there’s objections! This is my joint and I don’t let no foreigners go sniffing around.”
Loki smiled ingratiatingly. “Greatest of the Jötun, your objection is but natural with one who knows his own value. But the gods do not idly speak; we believe Mjöllnir is here, and have come in peace to ask it, rather than in arms with Odinn and his spear at our head, Heimdall and his great sword and Ullr’s deadly bow. Now you shall let us search for the hammer, or we will go away and return with them to make you such a feasting as you will not soon forget. But if we fail to find it we will depart in all peace. This is my word.”
“And mine!” cried Thor, his brows knitting. Beside him Shea noticed Thjalfi’s face go the color of skimmed milk and was slightly surprised to find himself unafraid. But that may be because I don’t understand the situation, he told himself.
Utgardaloki scratched thoughtfully, his lips working. “Tell you what,” he said at last. “You Æsir are sporting gents, ain’t you?”
“It is not to be denied,” said Loki guardedly, “that we enjoy sports.”
“I’ll make you a sporting proposition. You think you are great athletes. Well, we got pretty tough babies here, too. We’ll have some games, and if you beat us at even one of ’em, see, I’ll let you go ahead and search. If you lose, out you get.”
“What manner of games?”
“Hell, sonny, anything youse want.”
Thor’s face had gone thoughtful. “I am not unknown as a wrestler,” he remarked.
“Awright,” said Utgardaloki. “We’ll find someone to rassle you down. Can you do anything else?”
Loki spoke up. “I will meet your best champion at eating and our man Thjalfi here will run a race with you. Asa-Thor also will undertake any trial of strength you care to hold.”
“Swell. Me, I think these games are kid stuff, see? But it ought be fun for some of the gang to see you take your licking. HAI! Bring Elli up here; here’s a punk that wants to rassle!”
With a good deal of shouting and confusion a space was cleared near the fire in the center of the hall. Thor stood with fists on hips, waiting the giant’s champion. There came forward, not a giant, but a tall old woman. She was at least a hundred, a hunched bag of bones covered by thin, almost transparent skin, as wrinkled as the surface of a file.
Thor shouted: “What manner of jest is this, Utgardaloki? It is not to be said that Asa-Thor wrestles with women.”
“Oh, don’t worry none, kid. She likes it, don’tcha, Elli?”
The crone bared toothless gums. “Yep,” she quavered. “And many’s the good man I put down, heh, heh.”
“But—” began Thor.
“Y’ain’t scared to work up a reputation, are you?”
“Ha! Thor afraid? Not of aught the giant kindred can do.” Thor puffed out his chest.
“I gotta explain the rules.” Utgardaloki put a hand on the shoulder of each contestant and muttered at them.
Shea felt his arm pinched and looked into the bright eyes of Loki. “Great and evil is the magic in this place,” whispered Uncle Fox, “and I misdoubt me we are to be tricked, for never have I heard of such a wrestling. But it may be that the spells they use are spells against gods alone and not for the eyes of men. Now I have here a spell against spells, and while these contests go forward you shall take it.” He handed Shea a piece of very thin parchment, covered with spidery runic writing. “Repeat it forward, then backward, then forward again, looking as you do at the object you suspect of being an illusion. It may be you will see on the wall the hammer we seek.”
“Wouldn’t the giants hide it away, sir?”
“Not with their boasting and vainglorious habit. It—”
“Awright,” said Utgardaloki in a huge voice, “go!” Thor, roaring like a lion, seized Elli as though he intended to dash her brains out on the floor. But Elli might have been nailed where she was. Her rickety frame did not budge. Thor fell silent, wrenching at the crone’s arms and body. He turned purple in the face from the effort: the giants around murmured appreciatively.
Shea glanced at the slip Loki had given him. The words were readable, though they seemed to consist of meaningless strings of syllables—“Nyi-Nidi-Nordri-Sudri, Austri-Vestri-Altjof-Dvalinn.” He obediently repeated it according to the directions, looking at a giant’s club that hung on the wall. It remained a giant’s club. He turned back to the wrestling where Thor was puffing with effort, his forehead beaded with sweat.
“Witch!” Thor shouted at last, and seized her arm to twist it. Elli caught his neck with her free hand. There was a second’s scuffle and Thor skidded away, falling to one knee.
“That’s enough!” said Utgardaloki, stepping between them. “That counts as a fall; Elli wins. I guess it’s a good job you didn’t try to rassle with any of the big guys here, eh, Thor, old kid?” The other giants roared an approval that drowned Thor’s growl.
Utgardaloki continued: “Awright, you, stand back! Get back, I say, or I’ll cut the blood-eagle on a couple of you! Next event’s an eating contest. Bring Logi up here. We got some eating for him to do.”
A fire giant shuffled through the press. His black hair had a reddish tinge, and his movements were quick and animal-like. “Is it lunch time yet?” he rasped. “Them three elk I et for breakfast just kinda got my appetite going.”
Utgardaloki explained and introduced him to his opponent. “Please to meetcha,” said Logi. “I always like to see a guy what appreciates good food. Say, you oughta come down to Muspellheim sometime. We got a cook there what knows how to roast a whale right. He uses charcoal fire and bastes it with bear grease—”
“That’ll do, Logi,” said Utgardaloki. “You get that guy talking about the meals he’s et and he’ll talk till the Time comes.”
Shea was pushed back by giants as they crowded in. An eddy of the crowd carried him still farther away from the scene of action as the giants made way for a little procession of harried-looking slaves. These bore two huge wooden platters, on each of which rested an entire roasted elk haunch. Shea stood on tiptoe and stretched. Between a pair of massive shoulders he glimpsed Utgardaloki taking his place at the middle of a long table, at each end of which sat one of the contestants.
A shoulder moved across Shea’s field of vision, and he glanced up at the owner. It was a comparatively short giant, who bulged out in the middle to make up for his lack of stature. A disorderly mop of black-and-white hair covered his head. But the thing that struck Shea was that, as the giant turned profile to watch the eaters, the eye that looked from under the piebald thatch was bright blue.
That was wrong. Fire giants, as he had noted, had black eyes; hill giants gray or black eyes; frost giants pink. Of course, this giant might have a trace of some other blood—but there was a familiar angle to that long, high-bridged nose and something phony-looking about the mop of hair. Heimdall!
Shea whispered behind his hand: “How many mothers did you have, giant with the uncombed thatch?”
He heard a low chuckle and the answer came back: “Thrice three, man from an unknown world! But there is no need to shout; I can hear your lightest whisper, even your thoughts half-formed.”
“I think we’re being tricked,” continued Shea. He didn’t say it even in a whisper this time, merely thought it, moving his lips.
The answer was pat: “That is what was to be expected, and for no other reason did I come hither. Yet I have not solved the nature of the spells.”
Shea said: “I have been taught a spell”—and remembered Heimdall’s enmity to Loki and all his works, just in time to keep from mentioning Uncle Fox—“which may be of use in such a case.”
“Then use it,” Heimdall answered, “while you watch the contest.”
“Awright, ready, you two?” Utgardaloki shouted. “Go!”
The giants gave a shout. Shea, his eyes fixed on Loki, was repeating: “Nyi—Nidi—Nordri—Sudri.” The sly god bounced in his oversize chair as he applied his teeth to the elk haunch. The meat was disappearing in hunks the size of a man’s fist at the rate of two hunks per second. Shea had never seen anything like it, and wondered where Loki was putting it all. He heard Thjalfi’s voice, thin in the basso-profundo clamor of the giants: “Besit yourself, Son of Laufey!!”
Then the bone, the size of a baseball bat, was clean. Loki dropped it clattering to the platter and sat back with a sigh. A whoop went up from the assembled giants. Shea saw Loki start forward again, the eyes popping from his head. Utgardaloki walked to the opposite end of the table. He bellowed: “Logi wins!”
Shea turned to look at the other contestant. But his head bumped a giant’s elbow so violently that he saw stars. His eyes beaded with tears. For one fleeting second he saw no Logi there at all, only a great leaping flame at the opposite end of the table. A flicker—the teardrop was gone, and with it the picture.
Logi sat contentedly at the other end of the table, and Loki was crying: “He finished no sooner than myself!”
“Yeah, sonny boy, but he et the bone and the platter too. I said Logi wins!” boomed Utgardaloki.
“Heimdall!” Shea said it so loud that the god thrust a hand toward him. Fortunately the uproar around drowned his voice. “It is a trick, an illusion. Logi is a flame.”
“Now, good luck go with your eyes, no-warlock and warlock. Warn Asa-Thor, and use your spell on whatever you can see, for it is more than ever important that the hammer be found. Surely, these tricks and sleights must mean the Time is even nearer than we think, and the giants are desirous not to see that weapon in the hands of Redbeard. Go!”
Utgardaloki, posted on the table where the eating contest had been held, was directing the clearing of a section of the hall. “The next event is a footrace,” he was shouting. “You, shrimp!”—Utgardaloki pointed at Thjalfi. “You’re going to run against my son, Hugi. Where is that young half-wit? Hugi!”
“Here I am, pop.” A gangling, adolescent giant wormed his way to the front. He had little forehead and less chin, and a crop of pimples the size of poker chips. “You want me to run against him? He, he, he!” Hugi drooled down his chin as he laughed.
Shea ducked and dodged, squeezing through toward Thor, who was frowning with concentration as he watched the preparations for the race. Thjalfi and the drooling Hugi placed themselves at one end of the hall. “Go!” cried Utgardaloki, and they raced for the far end of the hall, a good three hundred yards away. Thjalfi went like the wind, but Hugi went like a bullet. By the time Thjalfi had reached the far end his opponent was halfway back.
“Hugi wins first heat!” roared Utgardaloki above a tornado of sound. “It’s two outta three.”
The crowd loosened a little as the contestants caught their breath. Shea found himself beside Thor and Loki.
“Hai, Turnip Harold,” rumbled the Redbeard, “where have you been?”
“It is more like anything else that he has been concealed under a table like a mouse,” remarked Loki, but Shea was too full of his news to resent anything.
“They’re trying to put over tricks on you—on us,” he burst out. “All these contests are illusions.”
He could see Thor’s lips curl. “Your warlock can see deeper into a millstone than most,” growled he angrily to Loki.
“No, but I mean it, really.” Hugi had just passed them to take his place for the second heat, the hall’s huge central fire on the other side. “Look,” said Shea. “That runner of theirs. He casts no shadow!”
Thor glanced and as comprehension spread across his features, turned purple. But just then Utgardaloki cried “Go!” again, and the second race was on. It was a repetition of the first. Utgardaloki announced over a delighted uproar that Hugi was the winner.
“I am to pick up their damned cat next,” growled Thor. “If that be another trick of theirs, I’ll—”
“Not so loudly,” whispered Loki. “Soft and slow is the sly fox taken. Now Thor, you shall try this cat-lifting as though nothing were amiss. But Harold here, who is only half-subject to their spells because he is a mortal and without fear, shall search for Mjöllnir. Youngling, you are our hope and stay. Use, use the spell I gave you.”
A chorus of yells announced that Utgardaloki’s cat had arrived. It was a huge beast, gray, and the size of a puma. But it did not look too big for the burly Thor to lift. It glared suspiciously at Thor and spat a little.
Utgardaloki rumbled: “Quiet, you. Ain’tcha got no manners?” The cat subsided and allowed Thor to scratch it behind the ears, though with no appearance of pleasure.
How had he seen through the illusion of the eating contest? Shea asked himself. A teardrop in the eye. Would he have to bang his head again to get another one? He closed his eyes and then opened them again, looking at Thor as he put an arm around the big cat’s belly and heaved. No teardrop. The cat’s belly came up, but its four big paws remained firmly planted.
How to induce a teardrop? A mug of mead stood on the table. Shea dipped a finger into the liquid and shook a drop into his eye. The alcohol burned and stung, and he could hear Thor’s grunt and the whooping of the giants. He shook his head and opened the eye again. Through a film of tears, as he repeated “Sudri—Nordri—Nidi—Nyi—” It was not a cat Thor was lifting, but the middle part of a snake as big around as a barrel. There was no sign of head or tail; the visible section was of uniform thickness, going in one door of the hall and out the other.
“Loki!” he said. “That’s not a cat. It’s a giant snake that Thor’s trying to lift!”
“With a strange shimmering blackish cast over its scales?”
“Yes; and no head or tail in sight.”
“Now, right good are your eyes, eater of turnips! That will be nothing less than the Midgard Serpent that curls round the earth! Surely we are surrounded by evil things. Hurry with the finding of the hammer, for this is now our only hope.”
Shea turned from the contest, making a desperate effort to concentrate. He looked at the nearest object, an aurochs skull on a pillar, tried another drop of mead in his eye and repeated the spell, forward, backward, and forward. No result. The skull was a skull. Thor was still grunting and heaving. Shea tried once more on a knife hanging at a giant’s belt. No result.
He looked at a quiver of arrows on the opposite wall and tried again. The sweet mead was sticking his eyelashes together and he felt sure he would have a headache after this. The quiver blurred as he pronounced the words. He found himself looking at a short-handled sledge hammer hanging by a rawhide loop.
Thor had given up the effort to lift the cat and came over to them, panting. Utgardaloki grinned down at him with the indulgence one might show a child. All around the giants were breaking up into little groups and calling for more drink.
“Want anymore, sonny boy?” the giant chieftain sneered. “Guess you ain’t so damn good as you thought you was, huh?”
Shea plucked at Thor’s sleeve as the latter flushed and started to retort. “Can you call your hammer to you?” he whispered.
The giant’s ears caught the words. “Beat it, thrall,” he said belligerently. “We got business to settle and I won’t have no snotty little mortals butting in. Now, Asa-Thor, do you want any more contests?”
“I—” began Thor again.
Shea clung to his arm. “Can you?” he demanded.
“Aye, if it be in view.”
“I said get outta here, punk!” bellowed Utgardaloki, the rough good nature vanishing from his face. He raised an arm like a tree trunk.
“Point at that quiver of arrows and call!” shouted Shea. He dodged behind Thor as the giant’s arm descended. The blow missed. He scuttled among the crowding monsters, hitting his head against the pommel of a giant’s sword. Utgardaloki was roaring behind him. He ducked under a table and past some foul-smelling fire giants. He heard a clang of metal as Thor pulled on the iron gloves he carried at his belt. Then over all other sounds rose the voice of the red-bearded god, making even Utgardaloki’s voice sound like a whisper:
“Mjöllnir the mighty, slayer of miscreants, come to your master, Thor Odinnsson!”
For a few breathless seconds the hall hung in suspended animation. Shea could see a giant just in front of him with mouth wide open, Adam’s apple rising and falling. Then there was a rending snap. With a deep humming, the hammer that had seemed a quiver of arrows flew straight through the air into Thor’s hands.
There was a deafening yell from the swarms of giants. They swayed back, then forward, squeezing Shea so tightly he could hardly breathe. High over the tumult rose the voice of Thor:
“I am Thor! I am the Thunderer! Ho, ho, hohoho, yoyoho!” The hammer was whirling round his head in a blur, sparks dancing round it. Level flashes of lightning cracked across the hall followed by deafening peals of thunder. There was a shriek from the giants and a rush toward the doors.
Shea shot one glimpse as the hammer flew at Utgardaloki and spattered his brains into pink oatmeal, rebounding back into Thor’s gloves. Then he was caught completely in the panic rush and almost squeezed to death. Fortunately for him, the giants on either side wedged him so tightly he couldn’t fall to be trampled.
The pressure suddenly gave way in front. Shea caught the giant ahead of him around the waist and hung on. Behind came Thor’s battle howl, mingled with constant thunder and the sound of the hammer shattering giant skulls—a noise that in a calmer moment Shea might have compared to that made by dropping a watermelon ten stories. The Wielder of Mjöllnir was thoroughly enjoying himself; his shouts were like the noise of a happy express train.
Shea found himself outside and running across damp moss in the middle of hundreds of galloping giants and thralls. He dared not stop lest he be stepped on. An outcrop of rock made him swerve. As he did so he caught sight of Utgard. There was already a yawning gap at one end of the roof. The central beam split; a spear of blue-green lightning shot skyward, and the place began to burn brightly around the edges of the rent.
A clump of trees cut off the view. Shea ran downhill with giants still all around him. One of the group just ahead missed his footing and went rolling. Before Shea could stop, he had tripped across the fellow’s legs, his face plowing up cold dirt and pine needles. A giant’s voice shouted: “Hey, gang! Look at this!”
“Now they’ve got me,” he thought. He rolled over, his head swimming from the jar. But it was not he they were interested in. The giant over whose legs he had fallen was Heimdall, his wig knocked askew to reveal a patch of golden hair. The straw with which he had stuffed his jacket was dribbling out. He was struggling to get up; around him a group of fire giants were gripping his arms and legs, kicking and cuffing at him. There was a babble of rough voices:
“He’s one of the Æsir, all right.” “Sock him!” “Let’s get out of here!” “Which one is he?” “Get the horses!”
If he could get away, Shea thought, he could at least take news of Heimdall’s plight to Thor. He started to crawl behind the projecting root of a tree, but the movement was fatal. One of the fire giants hallooed: “There’s another one!”
Shea was caught, jerked upright, and inspected by half a dozen of the filthy gorillalike beings. They took particular delight in pulling his hair and ears.
“Aw,” said one of them, “he’s no As. Bump him off and let’s get t’ hell out of here.”
One of them loosened a knife at his belt. Shea felt a deadly constriction of fear around the heart. But the largest of the lot—leadership seemed to go with size in giantland—roared: “Lay off! He was with that yellow-headed stumper. Maybe he’s one of the Vanes and we can get something for him. Anyway, it’s up to Lord Surt. Where the hell are those horses?”
At that moment more fire giants appeared, leading a group of horses. They were glossy black and bigger than the largest Percherons Shea had ever seen. Three hoofs were on each foot, as with the ancestral Miocene horse; their eyes glowed red like live coals and their breath made Shea cough. He remembered the phrase he had heard Heimdall whispering to Odinn in Sverre’s house—“fire horses.”
One of the giants produced leather cords from a pouch. Shea and Heimdall were bound with brutal efficiency and tossed on the back of one of the horses, one hanging down on either side. The giants clucked to their mounts, which started off at a trot through the gathering dusk among the trees.
Far behind them the thunders of Thor still rolled. From time to time his distant lightnings cast sudden shadows along their path. The red beard was certainly having fun.