Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (21 page)

Jake clut
ched the iron bars of the cage-like door before him.

Then
they all shrieked as the elevator rocketed straight upward into the dark hollow of the giant tree-trunk.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In the Arms of Yggdrasil

Up and up the elevator shot through the darkness at top speed. They were still screaming when it finally reached the top and wrenched to a halt.

A bell went
bing!
Again, the tree-trunk door slid open.

Snorri let out a queasy groan while Jake and Archie scrambled to find the latch on the iron door-grate. At last, they hauled it back and stumbled out to freedom.

They found themselves on a huge, broad balcony made of polished planks with an intricate railing of branches around the edges. The platform itself hugged the trunk of Yggdrasil, encircling it like the crow’s nest high up on the mast of an old pirate ship.

“Sweet cerebellum,” Archie murmured in shock. He glanced at Snorri. “Is this Jugenheim?”

The giant shook his head dazedly, staring at the view. “No.”

“Then where are we?”

Snorri shrugged. “Yggdrasil.”

Jake slowly took a few steps forward, turning to look in every direction. He saw that the platform was built right beneath the tree’s central junction, where the immeasurable trunk of Yggdrasil split into its two main branches, each as wide as roads.

Both had endless steps carved right into the bark of the tree; mossy, wooden arrow-signs pointed the way to the nine different worlds of Norse lore. Most of their names Jake couldn’t hope to pronounce, but there was one he recognized:
Jugenheim
.

He pointed
to the sign. “Look! Simple enough. We go that way.”

The others turned to confirm
it for themselves and were relieved by his discovery. Meanwhile, Red had crossed the balcony to the railing and summoned them over with an eager “Caw!”

They followed.

As Jake went to stand beside the Gryphon, he gripped the rough wooden railing in awe.
What a view.
From up here, you could see everything, almost to the edges of the earth. Gold skies and violet, both the sun and the moon were visible—one coming up, the other going down. Beneath them, the kingly Atlantic embraced the earth’s blue curve.

Jake stared in wonder as the others stood beside him. Closer beneath them, the fjords and the forests were veiled by floating wisps of cloud. To the west, in the middle distance, they could see the familiar craggy coastline of Scotland and the Hebrides. To the southeast loomed the mighty Alps.
“It’s like we’re sitting on the roof of the world.”

“Can you imagine the flight I’d have if I launched off
from here in the Pigeon?” Archie asked, staring rapturously at the horizon.

Jake frowned at him. “Don’t even think about it.”

The young inventor took out his telescope and they took turns peering through it for a while, until finally, it was time to go.

Between the viewing platform and tea-time with the Norns, they all agr
eed they’d had enough of a rest from their hike. The boys gathered up their gear once again, while Snorri shouldered the Pigeon. Red padded along after them as they followed the sign to Jugenheim and began their long march up the steps carved into the giant branch.

Jake held
on tightly to the vine handrail as he climbed. Going higher into the canopy of Yggdrasil was fascinating. The grayish-brown bark armoring the tree looked as strong as slabs of stone.

Every green leaf was as big as the jib sail on a schooner, and the higher they went, the more the leaves rustled in the fair wind that blew in off the ocean.

The playful breeze made the boys nervous about being knocked off their feet and whirling to earth like giant winged seeds.

Fortunately, th
eir gear helped weigh them down. Occasional glances through Archie’s telescope revealed huge gates at the far ends of the main branches they passed; they realized the towering gates of stone and iron were the formal front entrances to the respective Nine Worlds.

Amazing,
Jake thought. They labored on.

After a time, Jake noticed
that Archie had started limping again, but no one suggested taking a break. Time was ever on the move, even for the Tree of legend; the light below was changing. The sun stretched its golden rays westward, and as it sank into the sea, the moon rose higher, shedding a romantic glimmer over the windswept coasts far below. Jake could see the stars sparkling like fairy lights among the branches, and rather regretted that Dani wasn’t there to see it.

“I suppose all the scientists have made it ba
ck to the university by now,” Archie remarked. He sounded slightly out of breath.

Jake felt pretty winded, too. The air was thin at this elevation. “I should think so
,” he answered. “Let’s hope they haven’t remembered anything they should’ve forgotten.”

“And that the girls remembered to check on Miss
Langesund.”

“They won’t forget,” Jake replied. The carrot-he
ad was reliable when it came to such matters.

They pressed on, and still, none of them mentioned the incident
with the Norns. Clearly, no one wanted to talk about what they had whispered into Granny Wyrd’s little notions bags.

Jake wondered about the others, but their secrets we
re safe from him. Fair was fair; he had no desire to share his own.

At last
, they came to a small landing where the main bough split again into two slightly smaller branches. More stairs stretched up before them in either direction, but unlike the road-sized branch they had traveled so far, the two paths ahead were each only about as wide as alleys. Just two worlds were listed on the mossy finger-sign now: Asgard to the left, Jugenheim to the right.

“Now we’re making progress!” Jake said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Look at that!”

“Asgard
!” Panting with exertion, Archie turned to Snorri. “Isn’t that the home of the gods?”

“Don’t
you
have posh neighbors,” Jake teased.

Snorri
nodded and craned his neck, peering upward. “Their world’s up there in the highest branches of the Tree. I hear it’s very nice, indeed.”

“I suppose it would be
.” Jake paused to swig some water from his canteen, and the others followed suit.

When Red opened his beak expectantly, Jake spilled out some water into his pet’s open mouth. Red gul
ped it down, then sat and waited for them in contentment. The Gryphon was the only one who did not look the least bit tired from their all-day hike.

Jake took a drink himself then
wiped off his wet mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Looks like we’re almost at Jugenheim.” He gestured to the next bough, which tapered off into the distance.

“We don’t need to go as far as the gates,” Snorri said. “The hole I accidentally made should be right around here somewhere.”

Jake nodded. “We’ll keep an eye out for it, then.”

“I hope this branch can h
old me,” Snorri said anxiously, peering ahead.

The alley-wide branch
did look rather precarious for a person of his size, especially with the added weight of the Pigeon slung across his back. But Jake somehow managed a nonchalant shrug. “You should be fine,” he said with more assurance than he felt.

I
f all else failed and the branch snapped under Snorri’s weight, he vowed to himself he’d be ready to catch the giant by using his telekinesis. He hoped his powers were strong enough for that. He had never tried lifting anything so large. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. “Let’s go. Er, after you,” he said to Snorri.

If the branch broke under the giant, he did not
intend to join him in his fall. Snorri blanched, understanding Jake’s worry, then set one foot gingerly on the thinner bough.

It held without so much as a creak.

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Archie murmured to Jake.

A while later, t
he boys exchanged a grim glance when the branch tapered to the size of an ordinary footbridge.

“Don’t worry, it’ll hold,” Jake repeated to calm the nervous giant, though he watched from behind with a wince as Snorri tiptoe
d forward.

So far, so good. Jake glanced back at Archie to see how he was faring; the boy genius adjusted the bandage around his leg, then trudged after him, leaning on his makeshift crutch.

Thankfully, they proceeded without disaster, though the night was growing darker by the minute.

And then—at long last—they saw a strange sight
that heralded their arrival.

A distinct circle of sunshine lay across their path ahead.

Snorri pointed in excitement. “That’s it! The hole I made when I pulled the boulder out of my meadow! This is where I fell!”

“You fell all this way
and lived?” Jake asked incredulously.

Snorri
crept out cautiously onto the branch to stand under the empty hole. With his face turned skyward, he soaked up the sunshine spilling down from his homeland.

Apparently, it was
already daytime up in Jugenheim.

“Won’t we
ever
get any sleep?” Archie asked, covering a yawn.

“Soon,” Jake said.

Red crowed eagerly, pouncing into the circle of sunshine that broke the gloom. “Why don’t you fly up there and have a look around, boy?” Jake said to the Gryphon. “Scout it out. Make sure it’s safe and that nobody’s coming.”

“It should be quiet
up there,” Snorri said. “I live quite a ways from the village. They made me move farther out from everyone else because they say I snore too loud.” He paused. “Sometimes it gets lonely. That’s what I told the Norns.”

Jake wasn
’t sure what to say to that. He nodded sympathetically. “Still, let Red go up first, just to make sure the coast is clear. We don’t want to be seen sneaking in. Hopefully no one up there has found out yet about the seal between the worlds being broken. Go on, boy. Then come back and tell us what you see.”

Red
bobbed his head in agreement, then launched off the branch. He flew up through the hole in the earthen crust many yards above them and disappeared into Jugenheim.

They
all waited anxiously until he returned a few minutes later, peering over the edge of the hole with a happy “Caw, caw!”

Jake nodded. “
Looks like it’s safe to go!” he told the others. “Come on back down here, Red! Archie and I need a ride up.”

As the Gryphon flew back down and landed nimbly on the branch, Jake turned to Snorri. “Do you think you’ll be able to pull yourself up
there?”

The giant nodded. “You two go first.”

“Good luck,” Jake said, then he and Archie climbed on Red’s back, exchanging a glance of excitement.

T
hen the Gryphon stretched his scarlet wings and took flight once more, carrying his breathless passengers up through the gaping hole into the kingdom of the giants.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Rock In Question

Jake’s heart pounded as Red burst through the hole in the rocky crust of the ground. As they shot toward the blue sky, the boys looked around in amazement at the landscape of Jugenheim below.

Snorri’s farm sprawled beneath
them—a pasture ringed by a gigantic post-and-rail fence. Everything they saw was about five times larger than in their world, so that Snorri’s humble cottage was almost as big as Griffon Castle, the home Jake had inherited from his parents back in England.

“Look at the garden!” Archie cried, pointing
.

The boys laughed incredulously at the size of the vegetab
les growing in the burgeoning garden beside the giant’s cottage. The turnips were big enough that if one were hollowed out, it could have indeed served as Cinderella’s carriage with no other magic needed.

“And the orchard!” Jake chimed in.

Apples as big as watermelons hung from the trees.

Meanwhile Snorri had gathered up his courage to leap off the branch of Yggdrasil, catching himself on the broken part of the earth’s crust, where he dangled for a moment.

Jake looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see the giant puffing and straining, but successfully heaving his great bulk up through the hole.

Snorri h
ooked his elbows over the edge, and then carefully swung his right leg up onto solid ground. Jake grinned as the giant flopped safely onto his back in the grassy meadow from which he had originally fallen.

“Oh, it’s
sooo
good to be home!” Snorri groaned in relief.

The boys laughed, then Archie pointed to the huge, rounded boulder not far from the spot where Snorri lay. “I’ll be
t that’s the stone he told us about!”

It was huge.

“You think he actually moved that thing?” Jake exclaimed.

“Sure looks like it,” Archie said with a shrug
, and he was right. The rugged, rounded shape of the boulder was a perfect fit for the outline of the hole in the ground.

The sooner Snorri got that hole
plugged up again, the better—preferably before Loki found out about it and realized he could finally get into Jugenheim to start causing havoc.

Jake guided Red to land on top of the boulder
in question. Snorri was lying inert in the tall grass, a dopey grin of exhaustion on his face.

For someone who had wanted to get as far away from home as possible, he certainly looked happy to be back.

“Up, you! No rest for the wicked!” Jake hollered down to him with a smile. “You need to roll that rock back into place!”

“Don’t press it in too firmly, though!” Archie added. “We’ll still have to get out of here soon.”

“How soon?” Jake asked his cousin while Snorri let out a weary sigh before slowly lumbering to his feet.

Archie shrugged. “After we’ve had a look round, I guess. I told you, I’ve got to be back in three days.”

Snorri set all his gear down and shrugged off the shoulder-strap by which he had been carrying the Pigeon.

He took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together as he approached the big rock, and furrowed his brow with a look of concen
tration. “Shoo,” he ordered the boys, waving them off the boulder. “I don’t need any extra weight on here.”

“This I’ve got to see,” Jake taunted the giant merrily. “Set us down over there, Red.”

“How in the world did you move this thing in the first place?” Archie exclaimed as Red lifted off again, hovering nearby. “It must weigh ten, eleven tons! Did you use any tools for leverage? A spade or something?”

“Nope.” The giant shook his head. “I was just angry. At Gorm.”

“Whew! I don’t think I ever want to see you angry, mate,” Jake vowed.

“Don’t worry,” Snorri said with a chastened look. “It do
esn’t happen very often. I’m usually quite calm.”

The Gryphon flew down into the field and the boys got off his back.

The giant stared at the rock, sizing it up.

Jake and Archie stood in grass up to their chins while Snorri shrugged his shoulders to warm them up for his mighty task. He flexed his wrists, then he stretched his neck from side to side—at which it let out a series of ear-splitting pops.

The boys hollered in alarm at the noises, but the giant showed no signs of serious damage.

The boys began to cheer him on
, chanting: “Go, go, go!”

The giant let out a loud grunt as he hurled his bulk against the ten-ton boulder.

It rocked. They shouted in astonishment, then whooped at their dull-witted companion’s show of strength.

“Come on, Snorri! You can do it!”

“Do it for Jugenheim!” Archie yelled. “Keep your people safe from Loki!”

“Do it
for Princess Kaia!” Jake teased.

Sweat burst out on Snorri’s face, which had gone beet-red
; his arms shook with exertion; strange grunts of effort escaped him; his boots dug deep into the turf as he drove all his weight against the boulder.

All of a sudden, it slammed into place.

Snorri sighed and fell into the grass again in exhausted relief. The boys applauded madly.

When the dust cleared around the spot where the boulder had rocked back into place, Jake nodded to his cousin to go and have a closer look with him.

Archie followed, shaking his head in wonder as the boys approached the towering stone. “I can see why Loki wants an army of these big boys,” he remarked to Jake with a discreet nod at Snorri.

“Aye.”
Jake tossed his forelock out of his eyes. “You’d need them, going up against the god of war.”

“
And the god of thunder,” Archie agreed. “Not just one god, but two. Father and son team, remember? Jake, do you think Odin and Thor are real, too?”

He shrugged. “I neve
r would’ve thought Loki was, but I talked to him myself, so who knows? I don’t think we can rule it out.”

“I hope we don’t run into them,” Archie mumbled.

“Why not? Aren’t they supposed to be the good guys?”

“Well, compared to Loki, yes. But
that’s not saying much, is it? I mean, any god such as Odin who welcomed human sacrifice is not one that I’m too keen to meet.”

“Wait,
what? The Vikings had human sacrifices?” Jake exclaimed, turning to him in shock.

“Oh, sure! Why do you think o
ur poor ancestors in England were so terrified of them? Even what was left of the Roman Empire cowered from the Norsemen—and the Romans weren’t exactly sweethearts themselves, what with throwing people to the lions and all. Didn’t you see it in Dani’s Norway book? The Vikings used to hang prisoners of war from their sacred oak trees once a year as an offering to Odin—to say nothing of their special punishment, known as the Blood Eagle.”

“Blood Eagle?
That sounds neat.”

Archie looked askance at him. “You would say that.”

Jake grinned. “Why? What’s a Blood Eagle?”

“Oh, only
the name of this nice little torture the Vikings used to save for their most valued prisoners. Captured enemy kings and such.”

Jake lifted h
is eyebrow in question.

Archie le
aned closer while Snorri continued recovering in the grass. “They’d take a knife, see,” the boy genius confided in ominous tones, “and make two slits across the prisoner’s back. Then they’d pull his lungs out through the slits—”

“What?!”

“As the prisoner took his last breaths, his lungs, still partly attached, would pump like bloody wings sprouting from his back.”

Jake had stopped in his tracks and stared at him in horror.

“Well, you asked!” Archie said.

“That is disgusting!” he cried. “
Who ever thought of that?”

Archie shrugged
. “Just be glad the Irish monks rowed over to convert them and made them stop doing that sort of thing.”

“Blimey.”

“You can say that again.”

Jake paused
as a frightening thought struck him. “Didn’t the Norns say the giants still live like the Vikings did, under the old ways? You don’t think that means Blood Eagles, do you? Because if so, I’m thinkin’ we should probably be, er, kinda careful around them. Not make them angry,” he said uneasily.

“You think?” Archie drawled.

Jake scowled at him, but blazes. No wonder Snorri had wanted out of here. Shaking off the gruesome image of the Blood Eagle as best he could, Jake crouched down to inspect the seal of the earth around the bottom of the boulder.

Little chinks and crevices spiderwebbed the dry dirt around the base of the rock. When he knelt down to peer through a few of these tiny cracks, he could still see Yggdrasil and the starry sky below.

He straightened up again with a thoughtful frown. The seal wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for now, considering that he and Archie would still have to get out of here once they had warned the giant folk about Loki’s scheme.

But a
fter what his cousin had just told him about the Blood Eagle, Jake was suddenly not as eager about visiting the Norse giants as he had been before. He was rather annoyed with himself, actually. Why did he never look before he leaped?

As much as he longed to follow in his noble parents’ footsteps, becoming a Lightrider, he was still only twelve, after all, whether he liked to admit it or not.
He was still new at helping magical creatures in distress, but he scowled at the thought that he
did
seem to have a talent for getting in over his head.

This
was remarkably easy to do in Giant Land, where everything was huge and tall. In fact, Jake realized he had just lost the short boy genius somewhere in the tall grass. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “Archie?”

“I’m here!”
The giant blades of grass rustled and then parted. His cousin stepped back into view, much to Jake’s relief. “I wonder if this is how Gladwin feels when she’s spending time with us,” Archie remarked as he rejoined him.

“
Hmm, it’s probably worse for her,” he replied, considering that the average fairy was only about five inches tall.

Gladwin Lightwing, a royal garden fairy
, had helped to reunite Jake with his relatives. She was small enough to hitch a ride, as she often did, in his breast pocket. It would have been funny to see her here in Giant Land, he mused. She would have seemed as small as a speck.

A
ll of a sudden, the boys heard a deep, swift drumming that made the ground began to vibrate, shaking them off balance.

“What’
s that?” Archie cried.

As Jake looked up, his e
yes widened. “Move, we’re going to get squashed!”

He yank
ed his cousin toward the boulder just as their first glimpse of the approaching animals loomed above the tall grass.

The boys dove aside, terrified, as
a herd of sheep as big as elephants came running.

Woolly legs and enormous hoofs were everywhere.
The boys pressed back against the boulder to avoid being trampled. But a moment later, Red flew down to rescue them, having seen the danger.

The boys scrambled
onto his back, and the Gryphon instantly lifted away, angling clear of another massive sheep.

“Look at them all!
They’re huge!” Archie exclaimed as the trusty Gryphon flew them up to safety on top of the boulder.

Meanwhile, some distance away, Snorri
had sat up from where he had sprawled happily in the grass. “Sheepies?” He shot to his feet to greet them. “My babies!”

The sheep crowded joyfully around their master, bl
eating and baaa-ing. The Jugenheim sheep were, of course, proportional to the giant.

“Chubs! Zero! Maxine!” H
e greeted them by name, petting and doting on them. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! I missed you, too, poor little lambkins! I’m back now. Don’t worry, Daddy’s home…”

From their safe perch atop the boulder, Jake an
d Archie exchanged a startled glance.

“There, there,” the giant continued, soothing his panicked flock
. “It’s all right. I’m back now, and I will give you carrots for a treat!”

“Poor Snorri!” Archie murmured as they watched the fierce-looking giant doting on his fluffy pets. “No wonder he wanted to leave Jugenheim.”

Jake nodded in amusement. “He probably doesn’t fit in here at all.”

But
on second thought, if Blood Eagles and general Viking ferocity were the norm around here, then maybe, Jake mused, they should be grateful for that.