by Rick Riordan
The next millisecond demonstrated how much faster I could think than react. First I thought Blitz had spotted an actual duck. Blitzen likes ducks. Then I realized he was telling me to get down, which is hard to do when you’re the last in a line of three people on horseback.
Then I saw the large tree branch hanging directly in our path. I realized Stanley was going to run right under it at full speed. Even if the branch had been properly labeled low clearance, Stanley couldn’t read.
SMACK!
I found myself flat on my back in the snow. Above me, pine branches swayed in fuzzy Technicolor. My teeth ached.
I managed to sit up. My vision cleared, and I spotted Alex a few feet away, curled up and groaning in a pile of pine needles. Blitzen staggered around looking for his pith helmet. Fortunately, Jotunheim light wasn’t strong enough to petrify dwarves or he would’ve already turned to stone.
As for our intrepid ride, Stanley, he was gone. A trail of hoofprints continued under the tree branch and into the woods as far as I could see. Maybe he’d reached the end of his summoning time and vanished. Or maybe he’d gotten caught up in the joy of running and wouldn’t realize he’d left us behind for another twenty miles.
Blitzen snatched his pith helmet out of the snow. “Stupid horse. That was rude!”
I helped Alex to her feet. A nasty-looking cut zigzagged across her forehead like a squiggly red mouth.
“You’re bleeding,” I said. “I can fix that.”
She swatted away my hand. “I’m fine, Dr. House, but thanks for the diagnosis.” She turned unsteadily, scanning the forest. “Where are we?”
“More importantly,” Blitz said, “where are the others?”
Sam and Hearthstone were nowhere to be seen. I only hoped Sam was better at avoiding obstacles than Stanley was.
I scowled at the tree branch we’d run into. I wondered if I could get Jack to chop it down before the next group of poor schmucks rode through here. But there was something strange about its texture. Instead of the usual bark pattern, it consisted of crosshatched gray fiber. It didn’t taper to a point, but instead curved down to the ground, where it snaked across the snow. Not a branch, then…more like a huge cable. The top of the cable wound into the trees and disappeared into the clouds.
“What is this thing?” I asked. “It’s not a tree.”
To our left, a dark, looming shape I’d taken for a mountain shifted and rumbled. I realized with bladder-twisting certainty that it wasn’t a mountain. The largest giant I’d ever seen was sitting next to us.
“No, indeed!” his voice boomed. “That’s my shoestring!”
How could I not notice a giant that big? Well, if you didn’t know what you were looking at, he was simply too large to understand. His hiking boots were foothills. His bent knees were mountain peaks. His dark gray bowling shirt blended in with the sky, and his fluffy white beard looked like a bank of snow clouds. Even sitting down, the giant’s gleaming eyes were so far up they could have been blimps or moons.
“Hello, little ones!” The giant’s voice was deep enough to liquefy soft substances—like my eyeballs, for instance. “You should watch where you are going!”
He tucked in his right foot. The tree branch/shoelace we’d smacked into slithered through the pines, uprooting bushes, snapping branches, and scattering terrified woodland creatures. A twelve-point buck leaped out of nowhere and almost ran over Blitzen.
The giant leaned over, blocking out the gray light. He tied his shoe, humming as he worked, looping one massive cable over the other, the laces flailing and laying waste to whole swaths of forest.
Once the giant had done a proper double knot, the earth stopped shaking.
Alex yelled, “Who are you? And why haven’t you ever heard of Velcro straps?”
I’m not sure where she found the courage to speak. Maybe it was her head injury talking. Me, I was trying to decide if Jack had the power to kill a giant this big. Even if Jack managed to fly up the giant’s nose, I doubted his blade would do much more than cause a sneeze. And we didn’t want that.
The giant straightened and laughed. I wondered if his ears popped when he got that high in the stratosphere. “Hoo-hoo! The green-haired gnat is feisty! My name is Tiny!”
Now that I looked, I could see the name TINY embroidered on his bowling shirt like the distant letters of the Hollywood sign.
“Tiny,” I said.
I didn’t think he could possibly hear me any more than I could hear ants having an argument, but he grinned and nodded. “Yes, puny one. The other giants like to tease me, because, compared to most at Utgard-Loki’s palace, I am small.”
Blitzen dusted twigs from his blue jacket. “It’s got to be an illusion,” he muttered to us. “He can’t really be that big.”
Alex touched her bloody forehead. “This isn’t an illusion. That shoelace felt plenty real.”
The giant stretched. “Well, it’s a good thing you woke me from my nap. I suppose I should get going!”
“Hold on,” I yelled. “You said you were from Utgard-Loki’s palace?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Utgard Lanes! Would you be heading that way?”
“Uh, yeah!” I said. “We need to see the king!”
I was hoping Tiny might scoop us up and give us a ride. That seemed like the proper thing to do for travelers who’d just had a hit-and-run with your shoestring.
Tiny chuckled. “I don’t know how you’d fare at Utgard Lanes. We’re a little busy getting ready for the bowling tournament tomorrow. If you can’t even navigate around our shoestrings, you might get accidentally crushed.”
“We’ll do fine!” Alex said—again, with a lot more confidence than I could’ve mustered. “Where is the palace?”
“Just over yonder.” Tiny waved to his left, causing a new low-pressure front. “Easy two-minute walk.”
I tried to translate that from Giantese. I figured that meant the palace was about seven billion miles away.
“You couldn’t give us a lift, maybe?” I tried not to sound too pitiful.
“Well, now,” Tiny said, “I don’t really owe you any favors, do I? You’d have to make it over the threshold of the fortress to claim guest privileges. Then we’ll have to treat you right.”
“Here we go,” Blitzen grumbled.
I remembered how guest rights worked from our last time in Jotunheim. If you made it inside the house and claimed you were a guest, supposedly the host couldn’t kill you. Of course, when we’d tried that before, we ended up slaughtering an entire giant family after they attempted to squash us like bugs, but it had all been done with the utmost courtesy.
“Besides,” Tiny continued, “if you can’t make it to Utgard Lanes yourself, you really shouldn’t be there! Most giants are not as easygoing as I am. You need to be careful, little ones. My larger kin might take you for trespassers or termites or something! Really, I would stay away.”
I had a terrible vision of Sam and Hearthstone flying into the bowling alley and getting caught in the world’s largest bug zapper.
“We have to get there!” I shouted. “We’re meeting two friends.”
“Hmm.” Tiny raised his forearm, revealing a Mount Rushmore–size tattoo of Elvis Presley. The giant scratched his beard, and a single white whisker twirled down like an Apache helicopter and crashed nearby, sending up a mushroom cloud of snow. “Tell you what, then. You carry my bowling bag. That way everyone will know you’re a friend. Do me this small service, and I’ll vouch for you with Utgard-Loki. Try to keep up! But if you do fall behind, make sure you reach the castle by tomorrow morning. That’s when the tournament begins!”
He got to his feet and turned to leave. I had time to admire his scraggly gray man bun and read the giant yellow words embroidered across the back of his shirt: TINY’S TURKEY BOWLERS. I wondered if that was the name of his team or maybe his business. I pictured turkeys the size of cathedrals, and I knew they would be haunting my nightmares forever.
Then, in two steps, Ti
ny disappeared over the horizon.
I looked at my friends. “What did we just get ourselves into?”
“Well, good news,” Blitzen said. “I found the bag. Bad news…I found the bag.”
He pointed to a nearby mountain: a sheer dark cliff that rose five hundred feet to a wide plateau at the summit. But of course it wasn’t a mountain. It was a brown leather bowling bag.
Solving Problems with Extreme Fashion
AT THIS POINT, most people would have thrown themselves down on the ground and given up hope. And by most people, I mean me.
I sat in the snow and stared up at the towering cliffs of Mount Bowling Bag. TINY’S TURKEY BOWLERS was etched across the brown leather in black letters so faded they looked like random fault lines.
“There’s no way,” I said.
Alex’s forehead had stopped bleeding, but the skin around the cut had turned as green as her hair, which wasn’t a good sign. “I hate to agree with you, Maggie, but yeah. It’s impossible.”
“Please don’t call me Maggie,” I said. “Even Beantown is better than that.”
Alex looked like she was mentally filing away that information for later use. “What do you want to bet there’s a bowling ball in that bag? Probably weighs as much as an aircraft carrier.”
“Does it matter?” I asked. “Even empty, the bag is too big to move.”
Only Blitzen didn’t look defeated. He paced around the foot of the bag, running his fingers across the leather, muttering to himself as if running calculations.
“It has to be an illusion,” he said. “No bowling bag could be this big. No giant is that big.”
“They are called giants,” I noted. “Maybe if we had Hearthstone here he could do some rune magic, but—”
“Kid, work with me,” Blitz said. “I’m trying to problem-solve. This is a fashion accessory. It’s a bag. This is my specialty.”
I wanted to argue that bowling bags were about as far from fashion as Boston was from China. I didn’t see how one dwarf, no matter how talented, could solve this mountain of a problem with a few clever style choices. But I didn’t want to seem negative.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t dispel the illusion outright,” Blitz murmured. “We have to work with what we have, not against it. I wonder…”
He put his ear to the leather as if listening. Then he began to grin.
“Uh, Blitz?” I said. “You make me nervous when you smile like that.”
“This bag was never finished. It has no name.”
“A name,” Alex said. “Like Hi, Bag. My name is Alex. What’s yours?”
Blitzen nodded. “Exactly. Dwarves always name their creations. No item is fully crafted until it has a name.”
“Yeah, but, Blitz,” I said, “this is a giant’s bag. Not a dwarf’s bag.”
“Ah, but it could be. Don’t you see? I could finish crafting it.”
Alex and I both stared at him.
He sighed. “Look, while I was hanging out with Hearthstone in the safe house, I got bored. I started thinking up new projects. One of them…well, you know Hearthstone’s personal rune, right? Perthro?”
“The empty cup,” I said. “Yeah, I remember.”
“The what?” Alex asked.
I drew the rune sign in the dirt:
“It means a cup waiting to be filled,” I said. “Or a person who’s been hollowed out, waiting for something to make his life meaningful.”
Alex frowned. “Gods, that is depressing.”
“The point is,” Blitz said, “I’ve been considering a perthro bag—a bag that can never be filled. The bag would always feel empty and light. Most importantly, it would be any size you wanted.”
I looked at Mount Bowling Bag. Its side rose so high that birds wheeled against it in dismay. Or maybe they were just admiring its fine craftsmanship.
“Blitz,” I said, “I like your optimism. But I have to point out that this bag is roughly the size of Nantucket.”
“Yes, yes. It’s not ideal. I was hoping to make a prototype first. But if I can finish the bowling bag by naming it, stitching a little stylish embroidery into the leather, and giving it a command word, I might be able to channel its magic.” He patted his pockets until he found his sewing kit. “Hmm, I’ll need better tools.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “That leather is probably five feet thick.”
“Ah,” Blitz said, “but we have the best sewing needle in the world!”
“Jack,” I guessed.
Blitz’s eyes sparkled. I hadn’t seen him this excited since he created the chain mail cummerbund.
“I’ll also require some magic ingredients,” he said. “You guys will have to pitch in. I’ll need to weave thread from special filaments—something with power, resilience, and magical growth properties. For instance, the hair of a son of Frey!”
I felt like he’d smacked me in the face with a shoestring. “Say what now?”
Alex laughed. “I love this plan. His hair needs a good cut. Like, what is this, 1993?”
“Hold up now,” I protested.
“Also…” Blitz scrutinized Alex. “The bag needs to change sizes, which means I’ll need to dye the thread with the blood of a shape-shifter.”
Alex’s smile melted. “How much blood are we talking about?”
“Just a little.”
She hesitated, maybe wondering if she should bust out her garrote and substitute the blood of a dwarf and an einherji.
Finally, she sighed and rolled up her flannel sleeve. “All right, dwarf. Let’s make a magic bowling bag.”
Meat S’mores Roasting on an Open Fire
NOTHING BEATS camping out in a dreary Jotunheim forest while your friend stitches runes on a giant bowling bag!
“All day?” Alex complained when Blitz estimated his time until completion. Granted, she was a little grumpy after being smacked down by a giant shoelace, getting cut with a knife, and having her blood drained into a thermos cap. “We’re on the clock here, dwarf!”
“I know that.” Blitz spoke calmly, like he was addressing a Nidavellir kindergarten class. “I also know that we’re completely exposed here in the middle of giant territory and Sam and Hearth are missing, which is killing me. But our best chance of finding them and getting the information we need is by reaching Utgard-Loki’s palace. The best way to do that without dying is to enchant this bag. So, unless you know a faster way, yes, it will take me all day. I may have to work through the night as well.”
Alex scowled, but arguing with Blitzen’s logic was as pointless as arguing with his fashion sense. “What are we supposed do, then?”
“Bring me meals and water,” Blitz said. “Keep watch, especially at night, so I don’t get eaten by trolls. Cross your fingers that Sam and Hearth show up in the meantime. And Magnus, let me borrow your sword.”
I summoned Jack, who was happy to help.
“Oh, sewing?” His blade runes glowed with excitement. “This reminds me of the Great Icelandic Sew-Off of 886 C.E.! Frey and I destroyed the competition. A lot of warriors went home weeping, we shamed their stitching and darning skills so bad.”
I decided not to ask. The less I knew about my father’s sewing victories, the better.
While Jack and Blitz talked strategy, Alex and I made camp. She’d brought supplies, too, so in no time we had set up a nice level spot with a couple of pup tents and a stone-ringed fire pit.
“You must have camped a lot,” I noted.
She shrugged, arranging twigs for kindling. “I love the outdoors. Me and some kids at my pottery studio in Brookline Village, we used to go up to the mountains just to get away.”
She packed a lot of emotion in those last two words: get away.
“A pottery studio?” I asked.
She scowled as if trying to detect sarcasm. Maybe she’d fielded dumb questions from people, like: Oh, you make pottery? How cute! I used to like Play-Doh when I was young!
“The s
tudio was the only consistent place for me,” she said. “They let me crash there when things were bad at home.”
From her pack, she dug out a box of wooden matches. Her fingers seemed to fumble when she took a few sticks from the box. The cut on her forehead had turned a darker shade of green, but she still refused to let me heal it.
“The thing about clay,” she said, “it can turn into any shape. I get to decide what’s best for each piece. I just sort of…listen to what the clay wants. I know that sounds stupid.”
“You’re saying this to a guy with a talking sword.”
She snorted. “I suppose, but…” The matches fell out of her hand. She sat down hard, her face suddenly chalky.
“Whoa.” I scooted over to her. “You’re going to have to let me heal that head wound. Gods only know what kind of bacteria was on Tiny’s shoestring, and you donating blood to Blitz’s arts and crafts project didn’t help.”
“No, I don’t want—” She faltered. “There’s a first aid kit in my bag. I’ll just—”
“A first aid kit isn’t going to do it. What were you about to say?”
Alex touched her forehead and winced. “Nothing.”
“You said ‘I don’t want—’”
“This!” she snapped. “You nosing around in my business! Samirah told me that when you heal people—like the elf, Hearthstone—you get inside their heads, you see stuff. I don’t want that!”
I looked away, my hands turning numb. In the fire pit, Alex’s kindling pyramid fell apart. Her matches had scattered in a rune-like pattern, but if it meant anything, I couldn’t read it.
I thought about something Halfborn Gunderson had once told me about wolf packs: each wolf pushes the limits within its pack. They are constantly testing where they stand in the hierarchy—where they can sleep, how much they can eat of a fresh kill. They continue to push until the alpha wolf snaps at them and reminds them of their place. I hadn’t realized I was pushing, but I’d just gotten a first-rate alpha-snapping.
“I…don’t really control what happens when I heal.” I was surprised that my voice still worked. “With Hearth, I had to use a lot of power. He was almost dead. I don’t think I could read much from you while just fixing an infected cut. I’ll try not to, anyway. But if you don’t get some healing…”