Confessions of a Dork Lord

by Mike Johnston

  The ceilings stretched two, sometimes three hundred feet into the air. At four feet, ten inches tall, I was a speck of dust in the frost giants’ castle. And the corridors were full of those. The giants weren’t exactly big on housekeeping. There were ice boulders and ice junk in every corner. Also, I saw a lot of little ice creatures: ice golems and ice gnomes, ice lice and ice mice, magical monsters of every size and shape.

  I wished Oggy were here, he’d probably have adopted some ice mice. I grabbed at one, but his fur melted as soon as I took hold of him and he slipped from my hands.

  “Quit wasting time,” Storey muttered. She was right, of course. We had work to do, so I got my head back in the game. We slipped from one hall to the next as quietly as we could. But then we turned a corner and a giant strolled right up to us. He was at least a hundred feet tall. So I hoped he wouldn’t notice me up there, or if he did I prayed he’d think I was an oversized ice golem. With those long limbs, Storey probably looked like an ice spider. You know, the kind of spider a giant might step on, but he just strolled past us. And that wasn’t the only frost giant we ran into. They were everywhere, but Storey and I did our best to hide from them. We slipped inside cracks as tall as towers and ducked behind heaps of ice junk. Storey focused on covering our tracks while I searched for the big, wide corridors. They always led to the throne room or some other important place. I figured that was where I’d find the scepter.

  We were halfway down one of those cathedralsized galleries when another giant approached. This time there was nowhere to hide, so we both froze.* The giant nearly passed us, but something made him stop. He grunted in confusion, scrunching up his eyeballs. Then he jiggled his ankle like it was caught on something. He gave his foot another tug, but it still wouldn’t budge. So he was forced to look down, and that was when he caught sight of us. He also saw what had grabbed hold of his boot. It was snagged on what I would call one UNNECESSARILY long sword. Storey had her hands on the thing and was desperately trying to pull her blade out of his heel. But the thing was obviously stuck.

  It was too late to hide, and we’d obviously been discovered. So I did the gentlemanly thing. I grabbed hold of the sword and tried my best to help her pull it from his boot. It was the least I could do before he smashed us to bits.

  SADDERDAY

  Apparently, NO ONE had ever before dared to break into the frost giants’ castle, because the giant with the sword in his boot didn’t know what to do with us. He called his captain, and the two of them spent the whole night arguing about our fate. I must have dozed off at some point, but I woke when the captain took hold of my arm and tossed me to my feet. Storey was already standing. “To . . . the . . . king,” said the frost giant who’d interrupted my nap. He pointed to an enormous pair of doors at the end of a colossal hallway. Apparently, they’d reached a decision.

  The giants started off toward what I guessed was the throne room, and I did my best to tag along with them. But the big guys had fifty-foot-long legs. So for every step they took, I had to take twelve or fifteen strides just to keep up with them. I felt like I was trying to chase a falcon with my feet stuck in the mud. It was hopeless. The giants reached the end of the hallway about an hour before we did. When we finally got there, I had ice sweat all over my face. Icicles dangled from Storey’s eyelids, so I figured she wasn’t in much better shape.

  The doors opened, and the giants waved us into the room.

  Inside, the chamber was two or three times the height of the hallway. Clouds hovered near the ceiling, and I think it was snowing in there. I brushed a flake from my nose. Storey was shaking, but I could tell it wasn’t from the cold. She gripped that outlandishly long sword of hers a little tighter and made one of those swallowing motions with her throat, the kind grimmies make before something really bad happens.

  In the enormous chamber before us, the king of the frost giants, One Eye, sat upon a massive throne of snow and ice. Honestly, it was a mountain, and a big one at that. Since his last suit of armor had liquefied in the fiery throne room on Dark Lord Day, he was wearing a brand-new one. But I guess he hadn’t had time to make a new crown of snow—he was still wearing the one that had half melted on our dark holiday. It slid from his head once or twice while we waited for him to speak.

  “Greetings,” the king said. Then he just sat there and didn’t say anything else, which I kind of expected. Giants are like old people. They start a sentence, get distracted, and never finish it. Minutes passed—maybe hours. It felt like ages, and Storey and I were freezing cold. Remember, goblins are a wiry folk. They don’t much like the northern climates. Her skin went from bright crimson to a bruised purple while we stood there. And I’d gone so numb I barely noticed when Storey nudged me. Apparently, One Eye had finally asked me a question, but I hadn’t heard him. Maybe the bones in my ears were frozen solid. I almost asked him to repeat himself, but that might get me squashed. So I just pretended I’d heard him. I mean, really, there was only one thing for him to ask about. He was obviously worried that I’d uncovered his little theft. So, I tried to play it cool.

  “As the son of the Dark Lord Who Vanished, it’s my duty to tour the grim world from time to time. You know, the usual stuff, diplomatic visits, nothing out of the ordinary. So, anything I should know? Any grim news from the snow-covered parts of the world? Is there something you want to tell ME?” I asked. I thought I’d give him a chance to admit to stealing the scepter, without actually accusing him of taking it.

  One Eye looked at me sidelong, then he did something weird. Both of his eyes went out of focus, and he spoke. “Through the power of the third eye”—he tapped the tattooed eye on his forehead—“I see into your mind. You seek the scepter . . . but you will find it is not in my castle.”

  “Oh, thanks for the update,” I said.

  How was I supposed to know the giants had magical powers? I just thought they were really tall and that extra eye was some funny tattoo. You know, something he picked up in his “wild days.” I mean, could the king actually look into my mind? I couldn’t be sure. Anyone could have guessed I was looking for the scepter. Maybe One Eye was a charlatan, a fake, like some carnival fortune-teller, pretending to have mysterious abilities.

  “I’ve never been to a carnival, and I’m definitely not a charlatan. The eye sees all,” said the king.

  I have to say, that one caught me off guard. It was official. One Eye could read my thoughts, which meant that my whole mission was revealed. He knew I’d come here to retrieve the scepter and I thought HE was the thief. Suddenly, I knew he was telling the truth.

  “Of course I’m telling the truth,” said One Eye. Then he pounded his fist on the ice throne. “You’ve trespassed in the Sacred Fortress of the Frost Giants and will be punished accordingly,” he said. Then he narrowed his three eyes. Yep, that’s right, the tattoo moved. And he said, “Even your father was smart enough to avoid this castle. HE did not dare trespass on our hallowed ice.”

  That last part made the unfrozen parts of my body wince. If the Dark Lord had avoided this place, he’d done it for a good reason. The king of the frost giants must be one tough guy. But Storey had already said as much. This was one of those moments when I really wished my dad had been around to teach me this stuff . . . Or that I’d taken that grunt school elective, Frost Giants, How to Avoid Being Squashed.

  I didn’t know what to do. One Eye was either the greatest liar in the history of the world or I’d gone looking for the scepter in the wrong place. I was pretty sure it was the second one. So I tried to retrace my steps, to see if I’d missed some clues along the way.

  While I was lost in thought, One Eye and the other giants whispered to one another, trying to decide what to do next. Fortunately for us, when a one-hundred-foot-tall giant whispers, it sounds pretty much the same as a normal person yelling in your ear. From what I heard, our trespassing in the castle of the frost giants was apparently some sort of felony frost gia
nt crime. The grim folk are always visiting the Grimhold, so I hadn’t thought it was such a big deal to sneak into their castle. (Seriously, I really should have taken that frost giant course.)

  Words like crush, mash, and shred echoed in the throne room. From what I could tell, they were either talking about preparing their next meal or planning to turn the two of us into it.

  Storey drummed her slender red fingers on the pommel of her irritatingly long sword. I offered her a disapproving glare and said, “Remember when I asked you to leave that UNNECESSARILY long sword in the forest?”

  “No,” said Storey. “Probably wasn’t listening.”

  “You WERE listening. And I told you to stay behind too. But remember you said something about working for the general? Ring any bells?”

  “Nope,” she said. I could tell she was the type who didn’t like to admit when she’d messed up, but her face turned from purple back to crimson.

  “Nervous?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a little,” she admitted. “Gorey made me swear to protect you. He said he’d take my head if I failed. And I’m pretty sure he’ll do it. At minimum, I’ll lose my standing among the Katsirluki. I’m ranked third, but if I blow this assignment, I’ll probably get bumped down to fourth or fifth.”

  “You know we’re going to get smooshed,” I said. It was hardly the time to worry about rankings.

  I needed to find a way out of that throne room. But before I could do any planning, one of the giants said, “YOU . . . MUST . . . FOLLOW . . . ME.” Seriously. That’s how he spoke—slowly and deliberately, each word echoing like thunder in the icy halls. One Eye was an exception, but the rest of the frost giants took their time when they said something. A lot of time. The giants left pauses between each word, LONG pauses—as long as their legs.

  He said, “I WILL . . . (a bird circled the throne room) . . . TAKE YOU . . . (Storey and I had a long conversation about swords and which type of leather made the best grip) . . . TO YOUR . . . (one of the giants pulled out a coil of rope, flossed his teeth, and spat twice) . . . ICE CELL.”

  The frost giant said some other stuff, but it’s kind of hard to keep track of what someone is saying when there’s a five-minute pause between each word. By the time the next one arrived, I’d forgotten the one that came before it. I wouldn’t have known what to do if the giant hadn’t waved his hand and pointed to an ice door.

  He showed us to what I guessed was a jail cell made for faire folk. I was a little confused about what was going on, but Storey HAD listened to his little speech. So she filled me in on the details.

  One Eye needed more time to decide my fate, so he’d called it quits for the day. He’d take up the discussion again tomorrow. Until then, Storey and I would have to wait it out inside what could only be described as a giant ice cube.

  I’m not kidding. You’d think One Eye would spring for some grim folk furniture, but pretty much everything was made of ice: ice table, ice chair, ice sofa, ice bed, ice carpet. They even had magical ice candles that dripped icicles and burned with a cold flame. And I’ve already said how I feel about fire. Even the cold kind makes me sweat.

  The door closed, and the lock clicked shut. A guard stood outside our cell. There was NO WAY we were going to get out of there. So we both looked at each other, and I asked the obvious question, “Who gets the ice bed?”

  SULLENDAY

  Storey got the bed. And she acted like it was WAY better than the ice carpet. But both were cut from ice, so it was hard to imagine that one was more comfortable than the other. I’d figured that one out as soon as I looked at the room, so I’d made a strategic decision and offered the bed to Storey. I reckoned I’d look pretty gallant if I offered to sleep on the floor.

  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink, and I don’t think Storey did either. Come morning we were both in an icy mood, which, considering the fact that we were in a room made of ice, wasn’t entirely surprising. It was almost a relief to see the cell door open and hear the giants order us to return to the throne room.

  We passed through that long hallway again, and once more we had to sprint just to keep up with the giants, but this time the jog gave me an idea. With forty-foot-long legs, a frost giant could be out for a casual stroll and he’d still be moving faster than a fiery hellhound. The giants hadn’t run from the throne room on Dark Lord Day. They’d just walked out. And I didn’t think they left because they’d stolen the scepter. When we reached the throne room, I saw that One Eye still had that half-thawed crown of snow and two of his generals wore melted ice armor. Gorey had really turned up the flame at this year’s Dark Lord Day. He’d obviously made the room too hot for their ice attire. If they’d stayed around for another minute, there would have been a dozen naked giants in the throne room, and no one wanted to see that.

  I finally understood what had happened, so I tried to make amends. “When I saw you leave the throne room, I thought you guys had hit the road with the scepter. I didn’t realize that you’d just gone out to catch some cool air,” I said. Then I went on to explain my various revelations. I even apologized for One Eye’s half-melted crown of snow and suggested we try out a fountain of ice or something more frost-giant-friendly next year.

  “So we’re square?” I asked. “Forgive and forget. That sort of thing?”

  The great and powerful and just plain tall king of the frost giants shook his head, which made his half-melted crown of snow twist and fall again. I bit my lip and tried not to laugh while we waited for the king to speak. But One Eye must have been lost in thought, because he just nodded to one of his captains, who told us the king still hadn’t reached a verdict. And apparently he wasn’t going to get there anytime soon, so One Eye was moving us out of the ice cell. Maybe he thought he was being kind. He wasn’t. From my point of view, the king put me in the one place that was worse than prison: school.

  The guards led us from the throne room to the doors of Nightshadows North. As I’ve mentioned, our school runs an academy in the mountains for the frost giants and another one in the lava plains for the dragons. I’d always wondered what our sister schools looked like, and this one did not disappoint. We entered through three-hundred-foot-tall doors and walked down what seemed like an endless corridor just to reach our classroom. And inside, the schoolroom was huge, big enough to fit an eighty-foot-tall professor who wrote on a wall of polished ice with a charcoal rod made from the burnt length of a gigantic fir tree.

  From the hallway to the classroom, everything about the academy was different. Giants live to be sometimes two or three hundred years old. That’s three times the lifespan of a warlock. As we walked to our seats, the guards explained that the students don’t graduate until they’re thirty-six. That’s thirty years of school! So they did things a little more slowly. That first class lasted the entire day. Eight whole hours! And we studied only one thing. It was some poem called The Prose Giganta. They called it epic poetry, which sounded kind of exciting, and the stories in it actually were IMPRESSIVE: giants stepping on kings, stealing heaps of gold, and smashing whole cities. It was Dark-Lord-level stuff. But unlike orc history, which was mostly written in short sentences and had a lot of pictures in between the paragraphs, The Prose Giganta was penned in something called kennings, which were two- or three-word phrases that replaced just one word.

  So, instead of saying “blood,” they called it “battle-sweat.” As in, I smashed his brains in and let forth the BATTLE-SWEAT. “Sky-candle” meant “sun.” “Sail-road” stood in for “sea.” And “bane-of-wood” replaced “fire.” Simple—right? Well, not really. They were like little puzzles. In most cases, I had to really think about the kenning to understand it. I mean, who would have thought “wave-swine” meant “ship”? That was definitely not what I pictured.

  I needed a moment to wrap my head around the idea. When I finally understood what the giants were doing, I realized I could get away with a lot by using kenning
s. If Professor Irae heard me describe the dirty details of my indigestion normally, she’d probably turn me into a cloud of foul-smelling gas. Big trouble. However, if I used a kenning—something like “cheek-horn” or “seat-bomb,” instead of just saying “fart”—most of the grimmies would get what I was talking about, but Professor Irae couldn’t really punish me (or at least she couldn’t turn me into a “cheek-horn”).

  I was happily contemplating the various possibilities when I felt a tug on my robe. It was Storey.

  “Do you get this stuff, Wick? Makes no sense to me. Why say ‘battle-sweat’ when you can say ‘blood’? It’s two words versus one,” she said.

  I could tell she didn’t share my enthusiasm for kennings.

  “If you ask me, the giants live too long,” she said. “They invent this stuff just to pass the time.”

  “Clearly, you don’t get it,” I said, but Storey told me she didn’t WANT to get it. She was a warrior. She liked to say exactly what was on her mind. She didn’t appreciate creative language. Metaphors. Stuff like that. She also pointed out that it was Sullenday. Apparently, these guys didn’t believe in taking a day off. She spent the whole class rambling on about what sort of standing she’d end up with in the Cats-are-fluffy, or whatever her order was called. Then she went back to scribbling in her journal.

  I tried to sneak a look at it, but she slammed it shut again. I shook my head and went back to my study of kennings. I was actually starting to enjoy the lesson. But Storey must have been angry that I’d tried to take a peek at her journal, because as soon as she saw a smile on my face, she reminded me about the whole impending-death thing, and that pretty much put a damper on the rest of my day.