Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (34 page)

“C’m
on,” he murmured, grasping his younger cousin’s arm. “We need to keep moving before those dogs come back.”

“The dogs of war?” Archie echoed bitterly.

“Probably so,” Jake answered in a low tone. He felt sorry for his cousin, who still seemed to be in shock, but they had already wasted enough time.

As he pulled Archie out of there, he couldn’t help remembering Isabelle’s words back at the Exhibit Hall after seeing Dr. Galton.

One day, she had said, Archie would have to choose what sort of scientist he’d become. No doubt this glimpse into Odin’s war room would stay with the boy genius and factor into his decision when the time came to choose his future path.

Jake used his telekinesis to draw the giant door of the war-room shut.
Archie was unusually quiet as they turned their attention to the final chamber at the end of the hallway.

The last door was taller th
an the others, and when they got it open a crack, they soon found out why.

They peered in on a
lofty chamber filled with white light. They saw the back of a huge, empty chair ahead, facing away from them, and realized they had discovered the very seat of Odin’s power: the throne room.

Not all of the room was visible yet
, however. First came a short passageway that served as the entrance—it was only about fifteen feet long. The passage then opened up into the bright, soaring chamber beyond.

“Let’s go. This has to be the place!” Archie whispered, leaping down off Jake’s shoulders.

“Be careful. Let’s keep our eyes open,” Jake warned.

As
they ventured in, he was more nervous about trespassing into this chamber than any of the others.

They had no choic
e.

A
s they went down the passageway and stepped out into the larger throne room beyond—there it was.

“The pool!” Archie whispered.

Before the elevated throne lay a round pool, carved into the pristine white marble of the floor.

As the boys warily stepped closer, Jake
reached into his pocket for the scrap of paper with the riddle written on it.

B
ut before he could start checking the throne room to see if all of the clues matched, he glanced down into the crystal-pure pool.

With a sudden gasp, he
pointed at the water. “Look!”

This was no ordinary pool. Instead, its placid surface reflected things happening in the world.

The boys stared in wonder at the hazy images that materialized and faded again among the ripples.

The longer they star
ed, the more specific the visions became.

Perhaps it showed what you wished to see, because the faces of those
they loved began appearing. Jake saw Dani O’Dell brushing Teddy while she sat in the dormitory room. Isabelle was nearby, peering out the window through the Lie Detector Goggles.

The empath s
uddenly paused and glanced around, as though she could sense Archie and Jake’s presence somewhere nearby.

The
n the picture changed.

“Aunt
Ramona!” Jake breathed. They now gazed down upon the patrician, wrinkled face of the dowager baroness back at Bradford Park in England.

Archie chuckled. “Ah, she’s playing with her bees.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” Jake said with a grin.

The grand old lady also played the harmonium for enjoyment in the
evenings, and it always mystified Jake that such beautiful music could come out of nothing but crystal goblets filled with varying amounts of water.

But despite Her Ladyship’s
being one of the Elders of the Order of the Yew Tree and a personal friend of Queen Victoria, no less, Great-Great Aunt Ramona’s pride and joy (aside from Isabelle, her favorite) was without a doubt her beehives. The honey her hives produced was magnificent, but the elder witch insisted that she used no magic on her bees, just a little charm. She had a complicated opinion of magic, didn’t altogether trust it.

Oh, she could wield any sort of spell as needed, but she preferred not to whenever it could be avoided.

As they gazed into the reflection, she was talking to her bees—rather more fondly than she usually spoke to the children, for she was strict. They watched her pull down the netting from her beekeeping hat to cover her face, then she opened the door to the hive with a thickly-gloved hand. “And how are all my little friends this morning? Bzzz, bzzz, yes, yes, I know. It was rather cold for you last night, wasn’t it?”

T
he picture dissolved again and showed them a forest scene. Beside a babbling brook, a certain wolf of their acquaintance was gnawing happily on a stick, while a black leopard lazed on a tree branch above him, her tail flicking with contentment.

“The twins
! Well, they seem to be all right,” Archie murmured.

Then, to Jake’s delight, the picture turned again, this time showing them
the familiar streets of home—London, just outside Westminster Hall, the famous buildings of Parliament.

“
It’s Derek!” Jake said in excitement, leaning closer.

On the bustling avenue of Whitehall in the shadow of Big Ben, t
he rugged, dark-haired warrior was scanning his surroundings with brooding glances in all directions. He was obviously still on bodyguard duty, escorting some little mustachioed foreign dignitary into a waiting carriage.

“
Well, he looks annoyed,” Archie remarked.

“I’m sure he is,” Jake said with a grin.

Then the picture changed again and there was little Gladwin, Queen Victoria’s own fairy courier, speeding through the air with a tiny scrolled message strapped across her back, secured between her wings. Her golden fairy trail sparkled behind her as she zipped across the sky.

“Message for somebody, it seems,” Archie murmured.

“I wonder who,” Jake said, his voice a bit strangled by an unexpected wave of homesickness. What if he ran into trouble in this strange place and never got to see them all again?

When Archie turned away, glancing around the room, Jake froze at
a final, fleeting image of a blond man and a dark-haired woman sleeping peacefully side by side under glass lids—or rather, coffins. He stared.
“It can’t be.”

“What is it?” Archie turned back to him. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jake pointed at the pool, his heart suddenly pounding. “Did you see that?”

“No, what?”

“I…I think it was my…my parents.”

“Your parents? What, in their graves?”

“No, they weren’t skeletons or anything! They looked just like they do in their portrait above the fireplace back home at Griffon Castle.”

“But…how is that possible? Doesn’t this pool only show people in the here and now? I mean, everyone else we saw reflected in these waters is alive and well.”

“Aye,” Jake whispered, swallowing hard at the implications.

“W-what does it mean?” Archie asked.

He shook his head dazedly. “I have no idea.”

“Maybe you were mistaken. What were they doing?”
“Sleeping. Just lying there. Under glass.”

“Are you sure it was them?”

“I think so,” he said uncertainly. Jake had no memory of his parents, of course, considering how he’d been ripped away from them as a baby.

Archie looked at the pool with a frown, but
Jake’s head was suddenly spinning.

In his recent
battle against Fionnula Coralbroom, the sea-witch who had helped Uncle Waldrick betray and murder Jake’s parents, she had taunted him with a tantalizing hint that there was more to how the crime had played out than even Waldrick knew. She was a wicked, untrustworthy, old hag who would have said anything to trick him or deceive him if it gave her a chance to escape, and so he had not dared believe her when she had tossed him a crumb of hope that his parents might still be alive, somewhere, magically…

Unfortunately, t
he Order and the authorities of the Yew Court had locked the sea-witch away in a dungeon cell at the bottom of the ocean before Jake had had a chance to question her and get the truth.

O
f all times to receive a clue about his parents’ fate! It was maddening. Jake stared at the pool, willing the watery image of them to come back.

I
nstead, the picture turned dire, showing him Snorri and Kaia and Red still waging a desperate battle against the deathless Valkyries back on the boat. They were obviously tiring. He glanced at his cousin. “How long do you think we’ve been gone?”

Archie pulled out his fob watch, frowned, and gave it a shake. He listened for its tic
king, but then frowned. “I don’t know, it’s quit working. Maybe there’s no time here. Could be minutes. Maybe as much as an hour?”

Jake nodded and st
rove to push his countless questions to the back of his mind for now. “Let’s hurry and figure out this blasted riddle so we can get back before the Valkyries cut them to ribbons.”

“No
worries,” Archie answered abruptly. “I’ve already solved it.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Escape From Valhalla

“Have you?” Jake turned to his cousin in shock. It was never a bad thing having a genius around. “When did you do that?” he cried.

“Oh, the moment we walked in.”

“Really?! What’s the answer, then?”

“Open your eye
s, coz. You can count.” Tucking his fob watch back into his vest pocket, Archie nodded toward the giant throne.

“
Just tell me! We don’t have time for games!”

“Very well.”
Archie vaulted up onto the elevated marble dais on which Odin’s magnificent, solid-silver throne looked down on the pool. “Behold! What has four wings but never flies?” He pointed at the twin ravens carved on the back of the throne. “Stands twelve feet above the pool?” He patted the head of one of the twin hunting dog statues on the front of the massive chair. “Twelve
feet.
You see? It’s not a distance or a length, it’s actual feet! The dogs each have four paws. That’s eight feet. And both of the birds have two feet—that’s four. Four plus eight equals twelve, simple, count ’em.”

Jake stared. “Archie, you’re a genius.”

“So I’m told.” He continued: “The riddle further specified, ‘What has four wings but doesn’t fly?’ Each of these birds has two wings, obviously, and they’re statues, so I daresay they’re not going to be flying anywhere soon. In short, the answer is: Odin’s throne.”

“Brilliant. Honestly. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir!” Archie took a modest bow, then jumped off the dais.

But Jake was still amazed. He shook his head with a widening smile. “Figures the answer
to Loki’s riddle is the thing he covets most. Odin’s throne!” But then he had a new thought. “Hold on. If we just say ‘Odin’s throne,’ is that going to be specific enough?”

“What do you mean? It’s correct,” Archie replied as he walked back over to him.

“Didn’t Miss Langesund tell us the Vikings always named their most prized possessions? Or maybe Dani read it to me from her Norway book… I can’t recall. But either way, they did, didn’t they?”

Archie nodded uncertainly. “Yes. They
did like to name their swords and knives and boats and castles…”

“The throne could have a name,
see?” Jake said. “And if we don’t get it exactly right, Loki may disqualify our answer. He
would,
knowing him. He’ll take any excuse to say we lose.”

“Hm
m.” Archie leaned nearer to the throne for a closer look. “There are runes here, all over this front part.” He gestured to the carvings. “This might spell out the name, but I can’t begin to read it.”

“
Kaia should be able to. Let’s copy it down and show it to her,” Jake suggested.

“Excellent thought
. I’ll make an etching.” Archie took out a pencil stub and a little notepad out of his tool-bag. Then he held a sheet of paper over the runes and started coloring over them quickly with his pencil, creating a replica of the mysterious letter shapes beneath.

Jake took
a final look around to see if there was anything else he should remember from their trip here, when all of a sudden, the sound of barking filled the air.

The boys gasped
and looked at each other.

“The dogs!” Jake tore off running for the doorway.

Archie was only half done with the etching. “Where are you going? Wait for me!”

“
Finish the runes. We left the door open!” Jake yelled over his shoulder. He raced toward the door to the throne room as the vicious barking grew louder.

He could hear
canine claws clicking on the polished marble floor, coming closer. He’d never make it in time. The god-sized room was too big. Still a ways off, he brought up his hands and used his telekinesis to fling the towering door shut.

The moment it banged
closed, a pair of giant black snouts arrived, sniffing wildly under the bottom seam of the door. Odin’s hounds scratched at the door, barking up a storm.

Jake backed away, his heart pounding.
We’re trapped.
He ran back into the main part of the throne room just as Archie finished with the etching.

“Where are the dogs
?”

“Blocking
the door.”

“Then h
ow are we going to get out of here?” Archie cried.

Jake shook his head.
“I-I don’t know.”

But things could always get
worse, and in the next moment, they did.
Boom-boom, boom-boom…

“What’s that?” Archie squeaked.

“Footsteps,” Jake breathed.

“Quiet, you dogs!”
a deep voice thundered into the hallway. “How am I supposed to concentrate with you two making all that racket? Shut your snouts! Back in your places! I’m trying to run a cyclone in the Pacific, if you don’t mind!”

The boys exchanged a look of utter terror.

Archie mouthed the word:
Thor.

Jake nodded in dread.

Archie clapped his hand over his own mouth to hold back a shriek. Jake grabbed his arm, shushed him, then pointed toward a distant window on the far end of the throne room.

Archie lowered his hand from his mouth and blanched, but nodded. As they ran toward the wall with the window, Odin’s hounds continued barking.

“Pain in the rear end dogs! Why doesn’t Father take you with him when he goes out wandering?” the weather god grumbled in annoyance. “Sure, leave you here so I get stuck taking care of you…”

Boom-boom, boom-boom.
His footsteps were coming closer. Jake broke out in a cold sweat.

“What’s wrong with you
two? Why are you so fixated on that door?” Thor paused while the boys scrambled to climb up onto the window sill.

Jake zoomed his startled cousin up to the window-ledge using his telekinesis, then Archie
tied off a rope from his tool-bag and threw the other end down to him. Jake climbed it faster than he would have thought humanly possible.

“W
hat is it?” Thor asked his father’s hounds. “Is someone in there?”

Th
e dogs howled in answer.

“Intruder?”
Thor boomed in fury all of a sudden. “Why, I thought I heard a door slam somewhere down here!”

Jake and Archie combined all their strength to pry the huge window open
. They hauled it up just wide enough for them to roll under it; then they stood on the narrow sill just outside the glass.

Jake gulped as he looked down.

Archie glanced at him in fright. “It’s too high!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll bounce. Remember?”

“Oh, right! I forgot.” With that, Archie leaped immediately, showing rather more faith in Jake’s assurance than Jake had himself.

While Archie plunged toward the spongy green turf of Valhalla, Jake glanced back over his shoulder just as the throne room d
oor burst open and Thor came striding in.

Though Odin’s
firstborn son had not yet seen them, Jake stopped breathing at the sight of him.

The
red-haired god of thunder made Ragnor the Punisher look like a delicate flower, the puniest weakling.

For one thing, he was taller than two giants. Thor gusted into the room, a barrel-chest
ed titan of a man like a force of nature. His
muscles
had muscles, and from beneath his winged helmet, his long red hair flowed down his back.

He had a red beard, a cloak the color of storm clouds, and
in his wake, a salt wind followed. Jake gulped as he noted Thor’s famous hammer tucked into his thick leather belt.

Meanwhile, Archie had landed safely on the marshmallow ground and stood below, beckoning to him to hurry.

But Jake delayed, wondering just for a heartbeat if Thor might be able to help them with Loki.

The things Miss
Langesund had told the children about the Vikings’ favorite hero came rushing back into his mind.

Thor was the god of the weather, the skies, and the sea. Like the elements he ruled, he was moody and cha
ngeable—sometimes jovial, other times deadly—but always fearless and proud.

At least with Thor, unlike Loki, Miss
Langesund had told them, what you see is what you get. The god of thunder was frequently the butt of Loki’s jokes. Oftentimes, he took Loki’s pranks in good humor. But when Thor got angry, she had told them, he usually made short work of the trickster.

Jake wondered if Thor would make short work of
him
for intruding in Valhalla, or if the thunder god might be willing to listen about their Loki problem.

O
n second thought, judging by the fierce looks of the Viking god, Jake decided, the likeliest outcome for
him
was being Blood-Eagled.
No, thank you.
Better safe than sorry, he thought, and with that, he jumped off the ledge.

Thor noticed the
flicker a motion at the window.

“Who’s there? Who dares invade Valhalla?”

The mighty Norse god rushed after him like an ocean gale as Jake plummeted to the ground. All of his experience in darting away from Constable Flanagan back in the rookery paled in comparison to this.

“Run!” Jake yelled at Archie, while the spongy turf
of the afterworld received him without injury, bouncing him back up into the air as if he had landed on a trampoline.

Thor leaned out the window and made a grab for him. Jake somersaulted, pushing off the thunder god’s metal wristband as the giant hand whooshed under him.

“Agile for a dwarf,” Thor muttered, then he yelled for the dogs.

Jake finally landed and used his momentum to kick off immediately
for the woods. Archie was already sprinting well ahead of him. The boys raced for the cover of the forest.

Once hidden by the trees, they ran as fast as they
possibly could, tearing through the underbrush. There was no sign of Ragnor the Punisher, but they spied their horses from earlier grazing in a field. They ran over to them, climbed aboard, then galloped, full-tilt, back the way they came. In the distance, they passed the huge wooden lodge where the Viking warriors were still celebrating.

They rounded the woods, clattered onto the path beside the stream,
passed the puppies, and rode hard for the edge of the cliff-gates over which Snorri had thrown them.

Meanwhile, in the distance, they could hear Odin’s war-dogs barking. The sound was coming closer, along with more
boom-boom
footfalls of the angry Thor following his father’s hounds.

“Please don’t tell me we’re going to have to jump
off the cliff, too!” Archie yelled as they approached the cloud-swathed edge of Valhalla.

“I think…I may have an idea,” Jake
answered uncertainly.

Earlier
, back on the boat, he recalled the giant white arms of ice that had wrapped around the cliff-like gate of Valhalla, all the way down to the water.

With all the trouble from the Valkyries, he had barely paid attention to the playful penguin
s frolicking around the glacier.

“Well, what is it?
Don’t keep me in suspense!” Archie cried as they reached the edge of Valhalla and slowed their blowing horses.

“There!” Jake pointed at the penguins sunning themselves on the top of the glacier.

As Archie glanced over, furrowing his brow, one of the penguins hopped over to a smooth, silvery-blue hole in the upper end of the glacier.

The
comical bird flopped onto its belly and slid into the hole with an eager squawk.

Archie turned to him. “The penguins have an ice slide!”

“Exactly,” Jake said in relief. He flung himself down off his horse and ran to the hole in the glacier, Archie right behind him.

“Go!” Jake
waved his younger cousin into the ice-slide first. There was no time to lose. “Yell loud on the way down so Red and the giants hear you coming. They’ll catch you.”

“If
I don’t break my neck,” Archie muttered as he climbed feet-first into the penguins’ slippery ice tunnel.

“Beats getting eaten by those dogs.”

“True.” In a seated position, Archie folded his arms across his tool-bag, hugging it protectively against his chest. “All right, I’m ready. Give me a push, coz.”

Jake planted his ha
nds on his cousin’s shoulders and shoved him hard; Archie let out a yelp as he went slip-sliding down the luge on his back, feet-first.

Archie
whooshed out of sight into the ice-tunnel, his hollers, half-excited, half-terrified, streaming out behind him.

Meanwhile
, the barking of Odin’s hounds and the footsteps of the angry Thor were getting louder. In another moment, they’d be upon him.