The Complete Compleat Enchanter (11 page)

A lop-eared fire giant shuffled forward. “Whatcha want, boss?”

“Ride to the gates of Asgard. Tell them I have their horn tooter here. I will gladly send the nuisance back to his relatives; but in exchange I want that sword of his, the one they call Head. Hee, hee, hee. I am collecting gods’ swords, and we shall see, Lord Heimdall, how you fare against the frost giants without yours.”

He grinned all around his face and the fire giants in the background slapped their knees and whooped. “Pretty hot stuff boss! “Ain’t he smart!” “Two of the four great weapons!” “Boy, will we show ’em!”

Surt gazed at Shea and Heimdall for a moment, enjoying to the utmost the roar of appreciation and Heimdall’s sudden pallor. Then he made a gesture of dismissal. “Take the animals away and put ’em in a dungeon before I die laughing.”

Shea felt himself seized once more and carried off, face downward in the same ignominious position as before.

###

Down—down—down they went, stumbling through the lurid semi-dark. At last they came to a passage lined with cells between whose bars the hollow eyes of previous arrivals stared at them. The stench had become overpowering.

The commanding giant thundered: “Stegg!”

There was a stir in an alcove at the far end of the passage, and out came a scaly being about five feet tall, with an oversize head decorated by a snub nose and a pair of long pointed ears. Instead of hair and beard it had wormlike excrescences on its head. They moved. The being squeaked: “Yes, Lord.”

The giant said: “Got a couple more prisoners for you. Say, what stinks?”

“Please, Lord, mortal him die. Five days gone.”

“You lug! And you left him in there?”

“No lord here. Snögg say ‘no,’ must have lord’s orders to do—”

“You damn nitwit! Take him out and give him to the furnace detail! Hai, wait, take care of these prisoners first. Hai, bolt the door, somebody. We don’t take no chances with the Æsir.”

Stegg set about efficiently stripping Shea and Heimdall. Shea wasn’t especially afraid. So many extraordinary things had happened to him lately that the whole proceeding possessed an air of unreality. Besides, even the difficulties of such a place might not be beyond the resources of a well-applied brain.

Stegg said: “Lord, must put in dead mortal’s cell. No more. All full.”

“Awright, get in there, youse.” The giant gave Shea a cuff that almost knocked him flat and sent him staggering toward the cell which Stegg had opened. Shea avoided the mass of corruption at one side and looked for a place to sit down. There was none. The only furnishings of any land consisted of a bucket whose purpose was obvious.

Heimdall followed him in, still wearing his high, imperturbable air. Stegg gathered up the corpse, went out, and slammed the door. The giant took hold of the bars and heaved on them. There was no visible lock or bolt, but the door stayed tight.

“Oh, ho!” roared the giant. “Don’t the Sleepless One look cute? When we get through with the other Æsir we’ll come back and show you some fun. Have yourselves a time.” With this farewell, the giants all tramped out.

Fortunately the air was warm enough so Shea didn’t mind the loss of his garments from a thermal point of view. Around them the dungeon was silent, save for a drip of water somewhere and the occasional rustle of a prisoner in his cell. Across from Shea there was a clank of chains. An emaciated figure with a wildly disordered beard shuffled up to the bars and screamed, “Yngvi is a louse!” and shuffled back again.

“What means he?” Heimdall called out.

From the right came a muffled answer: “None knows. He says it every hour. He is mad, as you will be.”

“Cheerful place,” remarked Shea.

“Is it not?” agreed Heimdall readily. “Worse have I seen, but happily without being confined therein. I will say that for a mortal, you are not without spirit, Turnip Harold. Your demeanor likes me well.”

“Thanks.” Shea had not entirely forgotten his irritation over Heimdall’s patronizing manner, but the Sleepless One held his interest more than the choleric and rather slow-witted Thor or the sneering Loki. “If you don’t mind my asking, Golden One, why can’t you just use your powers to get out?”

“To all things there is a limit,” replied Heimdall, “of size, of power, and of duration. Wide is the lifetime of a god; wider than of a thousand of your feeble species one after the other. Yet even gods grow old and die. Likewise, as to these fire giants and their chief, Surt, that worst of beings, I have not much strength. If my brother Frey were here now, or if we were among the frost giants, I could overcome the magic of that door.”

“How do you mean?”

“It has no lock. Yet it will not open save when an authorized person pulls it and with intent to open. Look, now”—Heimdall pushed against the bars without effect—“if you will be quiet for a while, I will try to see my way out of this place.”

The Sleepless One leaned back against the wall, his eyes moving restlessly about. His body quivered with energy in spite of his relaxed position.

“Not too well can I see,” he announced after a few minutes. “There is so much magic here—fire magic of a kind both evil and difficult—that it hurts my head. Yet this much I see clearly: around us all is rock, with no entrance but the way by which we came. Beyond that there lies a passage with trolls to watch it. Ugh, disgusting creatures.” The golden-haired god gave a shudder of repugnance.

“Can you see beyond?” asked Shea.

“A little. Beyond the trolls, a ledge sits over a pile of molten slag at the entrance of the hall where the flaming swords are forged, and then—and then”—his forehead contracted, his lips moved a trifle—“a giant sits by the pool of slag. No more can I see.”

Heimdall relapsed into gloomy silence. Shea felt considerable respect and some liking for him; but it is hard to be friendly with a god, even in a prison cell. Thjalfi’s cheerful human warmth was missing.

Stegg re-entered the cell hall. One of the prisoners called out: “Good Stegg, a little water, please; I die of thirst.”

Stegg turned his head a trifle. “Dinner time soon, slave.” The prisoner gave a yell of anger and shouted abuse at the troll, who continued down to his alcove in the most perfect indifference. Here he hoisted himself onto a broken-down stool, dropped his chin on his chest, and apparently went to sleep.

“Nice guy,” said Shea.

The prisoner across the way came to the front of his cell and shrieked: “Yngvi is a louse!” again.

“The troll is not asleep,” said Heimdall. “I can hear his thoughts, for he is of a race that can hardly think at all without moving the lips. But I cannot make them out. Harold, you see a thing that is uncommon; namely, one of the Æsir confessing he is beaten. But there is this to be said: if we are held here it will be the worst of days for gods and men.”

“Why would that be?”

“So near is the balance of strength, gods against giants, that the issue of what will happen at the
Time
hangs by a thread. If we come late to the field we shall surely lose; the giants will hold the issues against our mustering. And I am here—here in this cell—with my gift of eyesight that can see them in time to warn. I am here, and the Gjallarhorn, the roaring trumpet that would call gods and heroes to the field, is at Sverre’s house.”

Shea asked: “Why don’t the Æsir
attack
the giants before the giants are ready, if they know there’s going to be a war anyway?”

Heimdall stared at him. “You know not the Law of the Nine Worlds, Harold. We Æsir cannot attack the giants all together before the
Time.
Men and gods live by law; else they would be but giants.”

He began to pace back and forth with rapid steps, his forehead set in a frown. Shea noted that even at this moment the Sleepless One was careful to place one foot before the other to best display the litheness of his walk.

“Surely they’ll miss you,” said Shea. “Can’t they set other guards to watch the giants get together, or”—he finished lamely at the glint in Heimdall’s eye—“something?”

“A mortal’s thoughts! Aye!” Heimdall gave a short bark of bitter laughter. “Set other guards, here and there! Listen, Turnip Harold; Harold the fool. Of all us Æsir, Frey is the best, the only one who can stand before Surt with weapons in hand. Yet the worlds are so made, and we cannot change it, that one race Frey fears. Against the frost giants he has no power. Only I, I and my sword Head, can deal with them; and if I am not there to lead my band against the frost giants, we shall live to something less than a ripe old age thereafter.”

“I’m sorry—sir,” said Shea.

“Aye. No matter. Come, let us play the game of questions. Few and ill are the thoughts that rise from brooding.”

###

For hours they plied each other with queries about their respective worlds. In that ominous place, time could be measured only by meals and the periodic shrieks of “Yngvi is a louse!” About the eighth of these cries, Stegg came out of his somnolent state, went out, and returned with a pile of bowls. These he set in front of the cells. Each bowl had a spoon; one was evidently expected to do one’s eating through the bars. As the troll put the bowls in front of Shea’s cell, he remarked loftily: “King see subjects eat.”

The mess he put in them consisted of some kind of porridge with small lumps of fish in it, sour to the taste. Shea did not blame his fellow prisoners when they broke into loud complaints about the quality and quantity of the food. Stegg paid not the slightest attention, relapsing into his chair till they had finished, when he gathered up the bowls and carried them out.

The next time the door opened, it was not Stegg but another troll. In the flickering torchlight this one was, if possible, less handsome than his predecessor. His face was built around a nose of such astonishing proportions that it projected a good eighteen inches, and he moved with a quick, catlike stride. The prisoners, who had been fairly noisy while Stegg was in charge, now fell silent.

The new jailer stepped quickly to Shea’s cell. “You new arrivals?” he snapped. “I am Snögg. You be good, nothing hurt you. You be bad,
zzzp.”
He made a motion with his finger to indicate the cutting of a throat, and turning his back on them, paced down the row of cells, peering suspiciously into each.

Shea had never in his life slept on a stone floor. So he was surprised, an indefinite time later, to awaken and discover that he had done it for the first time, with the result of being stiff.

He got up, stretching. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked Heimdall.

“I do not know that. Our fellow prisoner, who dislikes someone called Yngvi, ceased his shouting some time since.”

The long-nosed jailer was still pacing. Still muzzy with sleep Shea could not remember his name, and called out: “Hey, you with the nose! How long before breakf—”

The troll had turned on him, shrieking: “What you call me? You stinking worm! I—
zzzp!”
He ran down to the alcove, face distorted with fury, and returned with a bucket of water which he sloshed into Shea’s surprised face. “You son of unwed parents!” raged he. “I roast you with slow fire! I am Snögg. I am master! You use right name.”

Heimdall was laughing silently at the back of the cell.

Shea murmured: “That’s one way of getting a bath at all events. I guess our friend Snögg is sensitive about his nose.”

“That is not unevident,” said Heimdall. “Hai! How many troubles the children of men would save themselves, could they but have the skill of the gods for reading the thought that lies behind the lips. Half of all they suffer, I would wager.”

“Speaking of wagers, Sleepless One,” said Shea, “I see how we can run a race to pass the time.”

“This cage is somewhat less than spacious,” objected Heimdall. “What are you doing? It is to be trusted that you do not mean an eating race with those cockroaches.”

“No, I’m going to race
them.
Here’s yours. You can tell him by his broken feeler.”

“The steed is not of the breed,” observed Heimdall, taking the insect. “Still, I will name him Gold Top, after my horse. What will you call yours, and how shall we race them?”

Shea said: “I shall call mine Man O’ War after a famous horse in our world.” He smoothed down the dust on the floor, and drew a circle in it with his finger. “Now,” he explained, “let us release our racers in the center of the circle, and the one whose roach crosses the rim first shall win.”

“A good sport. What shall the wager be? A crown?”

“Seeing that neither of us has any money at all,” said Shea, “why don’t we shoot the works and make it fifty crowns?”

“Five hundred if you wish.”

Man O’ War won the first race. Snögg, hearing the activity in the cell, hustled over. “What you do?” he demanded. Shea explained. “Oh,” sniffed the troll. “All right, you do. Not too noisy, though. I stop if you do.” He stalked away, but was soon back again to watch the sport. Gold Top won the second race—Man o’ War the third and fourth. Shea, glancing up, suppressed an impulse to tweak the sesquipedalian nose that the troll had thrust through the bars.

By and by Snögg went out and was replaced by Stegg, who did not even notice the cockroach racing. As he hoisted himself into his chair, Shea asked whether he could get them some sort of small box or basket.

“Why you want?” asked Stegg.

Shea explained he wanted it to keep the cockroaches in.

Stegg raised his eyebrows. “I too big for this things,” he said loftily and refused to answer another word.

So they had to let the racers go rather than hold them in their hands all day. But Shea saved a little of his breakfast and later, by using it as bait, they captured two more cockroaches.

This time, after a few victories for Shea, Heimdall’s roach began to win consistently. By the time the man across the passage had yelled “Yngvi is a louse!” four times Shea found himself Heimdall’s debtor to the extent of something like thirty million crowns. It made him suspicious. He watched the golden god narrowly during the next race, then burst out: “Say, that’s not fair! You’re fixing my cockroach with your glittering eye and slowing him up!”

“What, mortal! Dare you accuse one of the Æsir?”