by Rick Riordan
The liquid in my cup looked like melted gold. I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since breakfast, so I’d been kind of hoping for elfish sandwiches and sparkling water. I wondered if I was supposed to ask about the goblet’s creation and its famous deeds before I drank, the way I would in Nidavellir, the world of the dwarves. Something told me no. The dwarves treated every object they made as unique, deserving of a name. From what I’d seen so far, elves surrounded themselves with priceless artifacts and didn’t care about them any more than they cared about their servants. I doubted they named their goblets.
I took a sip. Without doubt, it was the best stuff I’d ever had—with the sweetness of honey, the richness of chocolate, and the coolness of glacier ice, yet it tasted unlike any of those. It filled my stomach more satisfyingly than a three-course meal. It completely quenched my thirst. The jolt it gave me made the mead of Valhalla seem like a knock-off brand of energy drink.
Suddenly, the living room was tinged with kaleidoscopic light. I gazed outside at the well-manicured lawn, the sculptured hedgerows, the garden topiaries. I wanted to pull off my sunglasses, break through the window, and go skipping merrily through Alfheim until the sun burned my eyes out.
I realized Mr. Alderman was watching me, waiting to see how I handled the elfish goofy juice. I blinked several times to get my thoughts back in order.
“Sir,” I said, because politeness was working so well, “why won’t you help us? I mean, the stone is right there.”
“I will not help you,” said Mr. Alderman, “because it would serve me no purpose.” He sipped his drink, raising his pinky finger to show off a glittering amethyst ring. “My…son…Hearthstone, deserves no help from me. He left years ago without a word.” He paused, then barked a laugh. “Without a word. Well, of course he did. But you take my meaning.”
I wanted to shove my goblet between his perfect teeth, but I restrained myself. “So Hearthstone left. Is that a crime?”
“It should be.” Alderman scowled. “In doing so, he killed his mother.”
Hearthstone choked and dropped his goblet. For a moment, the only sound was the cup rolling on the marble floor.
“You didn’t know?” Mr. Alderman asked. “Of course you didn’t. Why would you care? After you left, she was distracted and upset. You have no idea how you embarrassed us by disappearing. There were rumors about you studying rune magic, of all things, consorting with Mimir and his riffraff, befriending a dwarf. Well, one afternoon, your mother was crossing the street in the village, on her way back from the country club. She had endured awful comments from her friends at lunch. She feared her reputation was ruined. She wasn’t looking where she was going. When a delivery truck ran the red light…”
Alderman gazed at the mosaic ceiling. For a second, I could almost imagine he had emotions other than anger. I thought I detected sadness in his eyes. Then his gaze froze over with disapproval again. “As if causing your brother’s death hadn’t been bad enough.”
Hearthstone fumbled for his goblet. His fingers seemed to be made of clay. It took him three tries to stand the cup upright on the table. Spots of gold liquid made a trail across the back of his hand.
“Hearth.” I touched his arm. I signed: I’m here.
I couldn’t think of what else to say. I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone—that someone in this room cared for him. I thought about the runestone he’d showed me months ago—perthro, the sign of the empty cup, Hearth’s favorite symbol. Hearthstone had been drained by his childhood. He’d chosen to fill his life with rune magic and a new family—which included me. I wanted to yell at Mr. Alderman that Hearthstone was a better elf than his parents ever were.
But one thing I’d learned from being a son of Frey—I couldn’t always fight my friends’ battles. The best I could do was be there to heal their injuries.
Also, yelling at Mr. Alderman wouldn’t get us what we needed. Sure, I could summon Jack, bust into the display case, and just take the stone. But I was betting Mr. Alderman had some first-rate security. It wouldn’t do Blitzen any good to get healed only to be killed immediately by the Alfheim SWAT unit. I wasn’t even sure the stone would work properly if it wasn’t given freely by its owner. Magic items had weird rules, especially ones named Skofnung.
“Mr. Alderman.” I tried to keep my voice even. “What do you want?”
He raised a platinum blond eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Aside from making your son feel miserable,” I added. “You’re really good at that. But you said helping us wouldn’t serve a purpose for you. What would make it worth your while?”
He smiled faintly. “Ah, a young man who understands business. From you, Magnus Chase, I don’t require much. You know the Vanir are our ancestral gods? Frey himself is our patron and lord. All of Alfheim was given to him as his teething gift when he was a child.”
“So…he chewed on you and spit you out?”
Mr. Alderman’s smile died. “My point is that a son of Frey would make a worthy friend for our family. All I would ask is that you stay with us for a while, perhaps attend a small reception…just a few hundred close associates. Show yourself, take a few photos with me for the press. That sort of thing.”
The gold drink started to leave a bad aftertaste in my mouth. Photos with Alderman sounded almost as painful as getting decapitated by a wire. “You’re worried about your reputation,” I said. “You’re ashamed of your son, so you want me to bolster your street cred.”
Alderman’s big alien eyes narrowed, making them almost normal size. “I do not know this term street cred. But I believe we understand each other.”
“Oh, I understand you.” I glanced at Hearthstone for guidance, but he still looked unfocused, miserable. “So, Mr. Alderman, I do your little photo op, and you give us the stone?”
“Well, now…” Alderman took a long sip from his goblet. “I would expect something from my wayward son, as well. He has unfinished business here. He must atone. He must pay his wergild.”
“What’s a wergild?” I silently prayed it wasn’t like a werewolf.
“Hearthstone knows what I mean.” Alderman stared at his son. “Not a hair must show. You do what must be done—what you should have done years ago. While you work on that, your friend will be a guest in our house.”
“Wait,” I said. “How long are we talking about? We’ve got somewhere important to be in, like, less than four days.”
Mr. Alderman bared his white teeth again. “Well, then, Hearthstone had better hurry.” He rose and shouted, “Inge!”
The hulder scurried over, a dishrag in her hands.
“Provide for my son and his guest as needed,” said Mr. Alderman. “They will stay in Hearthstone’s old room. And Magnus Chase, do not think you can defy me. My house, my rules. Try to take the stone and, son of Frey or not, it won’t go well for you.”
He tossed his goblet on the floor, as if he couldn’t allow Hearthstone to have the most impressive spill.
“Clean that up,” he snapped at Inge. Then he stormed out of the room.
Oh, You Wanted to Breathe? That’ll Be an Extra Three Gold
HEARTHSTONE’S ROOM? More like Hearthstone’s isolation chamber.
After cleaning up the spill (we insisted on helping), Inge led us up a wide staircase to the second floor, down a hall bedecked with lush tapestries and more artifact niches, to a simple metal door. She opened it with a big old-fashioned key, though doing so made her wince as if the door was hot.
“Apologies,” she told us. “The house’s locks are all made of iron. They’re uncomfortable for sprites like me.”
Judging from the clammy look on her face, I think she meant torturous. I guessed Mr. Alderman didn’t want Inge unlocking too many doors—or maybe he just didn’t care if she suffered.
Inside, the room was almost as large as my suite in Valhalla, but whereas my suite was designed to be everything I could want, this place was designed to be nothing Hearthstone would want. Unlike every other part o
f the house I’d seen, there were no windows. Rows of fluorescent lights glowed harshly overhead, providing all the ambiance of a discount-furniture store. On the floor in one corner lay a twin mattress covered in white sheets. No blanket, no comforter, no pillows. To the left, a doorway led to what I assumed was the bathroom. To the right, a closet stood open, revealing exactly one set of clothes: a white suit roughly Hearth’s size but otherwise an exact match for the suit in the portrait of Andiron downstairs.
Mounted on the walls, classroom-size whiteboards displayed to-do lists written in neat block letters.
Some lists were in black:
YOUR OWN LAUNDRY, TWICE WEEKLY = +2 GOLD
SWEEP THE FLOORS, BOTH LEVELS = +2 GOLD
WORTHY TASKS = +5 GOLD
Others were in red:
EACH MEAL = –3 GOLD
ONE HOUR OF FREE TIME = –3 GOLD
EMBARRASSING FAILURES = –10 GOLD
I counted maybe a dozen lists like this, along with hundreds of motivational statements like: NEVER FORGET YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. STRIVE TO BE WORTHY. NORMALCY IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS.
I felt as if I were surrounded by towering adults all wagging their fingers at me, heaping shame, making me smaller and smaller. And I’d only been here for a minute. I couldn’t imagine living here.
Even the Ten Commandments whiteboards weren’t the strangest thing. Stretched across the floor was the furry blue hide of a large animal. Its head had been removed, but its four paws still had the claws attached—curved ivory barbs that would’ve made perfect fishing hooks for catching great white sharks. Strewn across the rug were gold coins—maybe two or three hundred of them, glittering like islands in a sea of thick blue fur.
Hearthstone set Blitzen down gently at the foot of the mattress. He scanned the whiteboards, his face a mask of anxiety, as if looking for his name on a list of exam scores.
“Hearth?” I was so shocked by the room I couldn’t form a coherent question like, Why? or, May I please kick your father’s teeth in?
He made one of the first signs he’d ever taught me—back on the streets, when he was teaching me how to stay out of trouble with the police. He crossed two fingers and ran them down his opposite palm like he was writing a ticket: Rules.
It took a moment for my hands to remember how to sign. Your parents made these for you?
Rules, he repeated. His face gave away little. I started to wonder if, earlier in his life, Hearthstone had smiled more, cried more, shown any emotion more. Maybe he’d learned to be so careful with his expressions as a defense.
“But why the prices?” I asked. “It’s like a menu….”
I stared at the gold coins glittering on the fur rug. “Wait, the coins were your allowance? Or…your payment? Why throw them on the rug?”
Inge stood quietly in the doorway, her face lowered. “It’s the hide of the beast,” she said, also signing the words. “The one that killed his brother.”
My mouth tasted like rust. “Andiron?”
Inge nodded. She glanced behind her, probably worried that the master would appear out of nowhere. “It happened when Andiron was seven and Hearthstone was eight.” As she spoke, she signed almost as fluently as Hearth, like she’d been practicing for years. “They were playing in the woods behind the house. There’s an old well…” She hesitated, looking at Hearthstone for permission to say more.
Hearthstone shuddered.
Andiron loved the well, he signed. He thought it granted wishes. But there was a bad spirit….
He made a strange combination of signs: three fingers at the mouth—a W for water; then pointing down—the symbol for a well; then a V over one eye—the sign for taking a pee. (We used that one a lot on the streets, too.) Together, it looked like he was naming this bad spirit Pees-in-the-Well.
I frowned at Inge. “Did he just say—?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “That is the spirit’s name. In the old language, it is called a brunnmigi. It came out of the well and attacked Andiron in the form of…that. A large bluish creature, a mixture of bear and wolf.”
Always with the blue wolves. I hated them.
“It killed Andiron,” I summed up.
In the fluorescent light, Hearthstone’s face looked as petrified as Blitzen’s. I was playing with some stones, he signed. My back was turned. I didn’t hear. I couldn’t…
He grasped at empty air.
“It wasn’t your fault, Hearth,” Inge said.
She looked so young with her clear blue eyes, her slightly pudgy rosy cheeks, her blond hair curling around the edges of her bonnet, but she spoke as if she’d seen the attack firsthand.
“Were you there?” I asked.
She blushed even more. “Not exactly. I was just a little girl, but my mother worked as Mr. Alderman’s servant. I—I remember Hearthstone running into the house crying, signing for help. He and Mr. Alderman rushed out again. And then, later…Mr. Alderman came back, carrying Master Andiron’s body.”
Her cow tail flicked, brushing the doorjamb. “Mr. Alderman killed the brunnmigi, but he made Hearthstone…skin the creature, all by himself. Hearthstone wasn’t allowed back inside until the job was done. Once the hide was cured and made into a rug, they put it in here.”
“Gods.” I paced the room. I tried to wipe some of the words off a whiteboard, but they were written in permanent marker. Of course they were.
“And the coins?” I asked. “The menu items?”
My voice came out harsher than I’d intended. Inge flinched.
“Hearthstone’s wergild,” she said. “The blood debt for his brother’s death.”
Cover the rug, Hearthstone signed mechanically, as if quoting something he’d heard a million times. Earn gold coins until not a single hair can be seen. Then I have paid.
I looked at the list of prices—the pluses and minuses of Hearthstone’s guilt ledger. I stared at the sprinkling of coins lost in an expanse of blue fur. I imagined eight-year-old Hearthstone trying to earn enough money to cover even the smallest portion of this huge rug.
I shivered, but I couldn’t shake off my anger. “Hearth, I thought your parents beat you or something. This is worse.”
Inge wrung her hands. “Oh, no, sir, beatings are only for the house staff. But you are right. Mr. Hearthstone’s punishment has been much more difficult.”
Beatings. Inge mentioned them as if they were unfortunate facts of life, like burned cookies or stopped-up sinks.
“I’m going to tear this place down,” I decided. “I’m going to throw your father—”
Hearthstone locked eyes with me. My anger backwashed in my throat. This wasn’t my call. This wasn’t my history. Still…
“Hearth, we can’t play his sick little game,” I said. “He wants you to complete this wergild before he helps us? That’s impossible! Sam’s supposed to marry a giant in four days. Can’t we just take the stone? Travel to another world before Alderman realizes?”
Hearth shook his head. Stone must be a gift. Only works if given freely.
“And there are guards,” Inge added. “Security spirits that…you don’t want to meet.”
I’d expected all of the above, but that didn’t stop me from cursing until Inge’s ears blushed.
“What about rune magic?” I asked. “Can you summon enough gold to cover the fur?”
Wergild cannot be cheated, Hearth signed. Gold must be earned or won by some great effort.
“That’ll take years!”
“Perhaps not,” Inge murmured, as if talking to the blue rug. “There is a way.”
Hearth turned to her. How?
Inge clasped her hands in agitation. I wasn’t sure if she was aware that she was making the sign for marriage. “I—I don’t mean to speak out of turn. But there is the Careful One.”
Hearth threw his hands up in the universal gesture for Are you kidding me? He signed: Careful One is a legend.
“No,” Inge said. “I know where he is.”
Hearth stared at her i
n dismay. Even if. No. Too dangerous. Everyone who tries to rob him ends up dead.
“Not everyone,” Inge said. “It would be dangerous, but you could do it, Hearth. I know you could.”
“Hold up,” I said. “Who’s the Careful One? What are you talking about?”
“There—there is a dwarf,” Inge said. “The only dwarf in Alfheim except for…” She nodded toward our petrified friend. “The Careful One has a hoard of gold large enough to cover this rug. I could tell you how to find him—if you don’t mind a fairly high chance that you’ll die.”
Hearthstone? More Like Hearthrob. Am I Right?
YOU SHOULDN’T make a comment about imminent death and then say “Good night! We’ll talk about it tomorrow!”
But Inge insisted we shouldn’t go after the dwarf until the morning. She pointed out that we needed rest. She brought us extra clothes, food and drink, and a couple of pillows. Then she scurried off, maybe to clean up spills or dust artifact niches or pay Mr. Alderman five gold for the privilege of being his servant.
Hearth didn’t want to talk about the killer dwarf Careful One or his gold. He didn’t want to be consoled about his dead mother or his living father. After a quick gloomy meal, he signed, Need sleep, and promptly collapsed on his mattress.
Just out of spite, I decided to sleep on the rug. Sure, it was creepy, but how often do you get to recline on one hundred percent genuine Pees-in-the-Well fur?
Hearthstone had told me that the sun never set in Alfheim. It just sort of dipped to the horizon and came back up again, like in summer in the arctic. I’d wondered if I’d have trouble sleeping when there was no night. But I needn’t have worried—here in Hearthstone’s windowless room, one flick of the light switch left me in total darkness.
I’d had a long day, what with fighting democratic zombies and then getting dropped out of an airplane into the wealthy suburbs of Elitist-heim. The evil creature’s fur was surprisingly warm and comfortable. Before I knew it, I had drifted off into not-so-peaceful slumber.
Seriously, I don’t know if there’s a Norse god of dreams, but if there is, I’m going to find his house and hack apart his Sleep Number mattress with a battle-ax.