The Complete Compleat Enchanter (9 page)

“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.