Thjalfi was whispering to him. “By the beard of Odinn, I’m ashamed of you, friend Harold. Why did ye promise a fire if ye couldn’t make it?”
“I thought I could, honest,” said Shea morosely.
“Well, maybe so. Ye certainly rubbed the Thunderer the wrong way. Ye’d best be grateful to Uncle Fox. He saved your life for you. He ain’t as bad as some people think, I always say. Usually helps you out in a real pinch.”
The dark something grew into the form of an oddly shaped house. The top was rounded, the near end completely open. When they went, in Shea found to his surprise that the floor was of some linoleumlike material, as were the curving walls and low-arched roof. There seemed only a single broad low room, without furniture or lights. At the far end they could dimly make out five hallways, circular in cross section, leading they knew not where. Nobody cared to explore.
Thjalfi and Shea dragged down the heavy chest and fished out blankets. For supper the four glumly chewed pieces of smoked salmon. Thor’s eyebrows worked in a manner that showed he was trying to control justifiable anger.
Finally Loki said: “It is in my mind that our fireless warlock has not heard the story of your fishing, son of Jörd.”
“Oh,” said Thor, “that story is not unknown. But it is good that men should hear it and learn from it. Let me think—”
“Odinn preserve us!” murmured Thjalfi in Shea’s ear. “I’ve only heard this a million times.”
Thor rumbled: “I was guesting with the giant Hymir. We rowed far out in the blue sea. I baited my hook with a whole ox-head, for the fish I fish are worthy a man’s strength. At the first strike I knew I had the greatest fish of all: to wit, the Midgard Serpent, for his strength was so great. Three whales could not have pulled so hard. For nine hours I played the serpent, thrashing to and fro, before I pulled him in. When his head came over the gunwale, he sprayed venom in futile wrath; it ate holes in my clothes. His eyes were as great as shields, and his teeth that long.” Thor held up his hands in the gloom to show the length of the teeth. “I pulled and the serpent pulled again. I was braced with my belt of strength; my feet nearly went through the bottom of the boat.
“I had all but landed the monster, when—I speak no untruth—that fool Hymir got scared and cut the line! The biggest thing any fisherman ever caught, and it escaped!” He finished on a mournful note: “I gave Hymir a thumping he will not soon forget. But it did not give me the trophy I wanted to hang on the walls of Thrudvang!”
Thjalfi leaned toward Shea, singing in his ear:
“A man shall not boast Of the fish that fled
Or the bear he failed to flay;
Bigger they be Than those borne back
To hang their heads in the hall.
“At least that’s what Atli’s Draper says.”
Loki chuckled; he had caught the words. “True, youngling. Had any but our friend and great protector told such a tale, I would doubt it.”
“Doubt me?” rumbled Thor. “How would you like one of my buffets?” He drew back his arm. Loki ducked. Thor uttered a huge good-natured laugh. “Two things gods and mortals alike doubt—tales of fishing and the virtue of women.”
He lay back among the blankets, took two deep breaths and seemed to be snoring instantly. Loki and Thjalfi also lapsed into silence.
Shea, unable to sleep, let his mind go over the day’s doings. He had shown up pretty badly. It annoyed him, for he was beginning to like these people, even the unapproachable and tempestuous Thor. The big fellow was all right: someone you could depend on right up to the hilt, especially in any crisis that required straightforward courage. He would see right and wrong divided by a line of absolute sharpness, chalk on one side, coal dust on the other. He became annoyed when others proved to lack his own simple strength.
About Loki, Shea was not quite so sure. Uncle Fox had saved his life, all right, but Shea suspected that there had been a touch of self-interest about the act. Loki expected to make some use of him, and not entirely as a butt of jokes, either. That keen mind had doubtless noted the unfamiliar gear Shea had brought from the twentieth century and was speculating on its use.
But why had those gadgets failed to work? Why had he been unable to read simple English print?
Was it English? Shea tried to visualize his name in written form. It was easy enough, and showed him that the transference had not made him illiterate. But wait a minute, what was he visualizing? He concentrated on the row of letters in his mind’s eye. What he saw was:
These letters spelled Harold Bryan Shea to him. At the same time he realized they weren’t the letters of the Latin alphabet. He tried some more visualizations. “Man” came out as:
Something was wrong. “Man,” he vaguely remembered, ought not to have four letters.
Then, gradually, he realized what had happened. Chalmers had been right and more than right. His mind had been filled with the fundamental assumptions of this new world. When he transferred from his safe, Midwestern institute to this howling wilderness, he had automatically changed languages. If it were otherwise, if the shift were partial, he would be a dement—insane. But the shift was complete. He was speaking and understanding Old Norse, touching Old Norse gods and eating Old Norse food. No wonder he had had no difficulty making himself understood!
But as an inevitable corollary, his knowledge of English had vanished. When he thought of the written form of “man” he could form no concept but that of the four runic characters:
He couldn’t even imagine what the word would look like with the runes put into other characters. And he had failed to read his Boy Scout Handbook.
Naturally his gadgets had failed to work. He was in a world not governed by the laws of twentieth-century physics or chemistry. It had a mental pattern which left no room for matches or flashlights, or non-rusting steel. These things were simply inconceivable to anyone around him. Therefore they did not exist save as curiously shaped objects of no value.
Well, anyway, he thought to himself drowsily, at least I won’t have to worry about the figure I cut in front of these guys again. I’ve fallen so low that nothing I could do would make me a bigger fool. Oh, what the hell—
Five
Shea awoke before dawn, shivering. The temperature was still above freezing, but a wind had come up, and the gray landscape was curtained with driving rain. He yawned and sat up with his blanket round him like an Indian. The others were still asleep and he stared out for a moment, trying to recover the thread of last night’s thoughts.
This world he was in—perhaps permanently—was governed by laws of its own. What were those laws? There was one piece of equipment of which the transference had not robbed him; his modern mind, habituated to studying and analyzing the general rules guiding individual events. He ought to be able to reason out the rules governing this existence and to use them—something which the rustic Thjalfi would never think of doing. So far the only rules he had noticed were that the gods had unusual powers. But there must be general laws underlying even these—
Thor’s snores died away into a gasping rattle. The red-bearded god rubbed his eyes, sat up, and spat.
“Up, all Æsir’s men!” he said. “Ah, Harold of the Turnips, you are already awake. Cold salmon will be our breakfast again since your fire magic failed.” Then, as he saw Shea stiffen: “Nay, take it not unkindly. We Æsir are not unkind to mortals, and I’ve seen more unpromising objects than you turn out all right. Make a man of you yet, youngling. Just watch me and imitate what I do.” He yawned and the yawn spread into a bristling grin.
The others bestirred themselves. Thjalfi got out some smoked salmon. However good the stuff was, Shea found the third successive meal of it a little too much.
They were just beginning to gnaw when there was a heavy tramp outside. Through the rain loomed a gray shape whose outline made Shea’s scalp tingle. It was mannish, but at least ten feet tall, with massive columnar legs. It was a giant.
The giant stooped and looked int
o the travelers’ refuge. Shea, his heart beating madly, backed up against the curving wall, his hand feeling for his hunting knife. The face that looked in was huge, with bloodshot gray eyes and a scraggly iron-gray beard, and its expression was not encouraging.
“Ungh,” snarled the giant, showing yellow snags of teeth. His voice was a couple of octaves beneath the lowest human bass. “ ’Scuse me, gents, but I been looking for my glove. How ’bout having a little breakfast together, huh?”
Shea, Thjalfi and Loki all looked at Thor. The Red God stood with feet wide apart, surveying the giant for some minutes. Then he said: “Good is guesting on a journey. We offer some smoked salmon. But what have you?”
“The name’s Skrymir, buddy. I got some bread and dried dragon meat. Say, ain’t you Thor Odinnsson, the hammer thrower?”
“That is not incorrect.”
“Boy, oh, boy, ain’t that something?” The giant made a horrible face that was probably intended for a friendly grin. He reached around for a bag that hung at his back and, sitting down in front of the shelter, opened it. Shea got a better view of him, though not one that inspired a more favorable impression. The monster’s long gray hair was done up in a topknot with bone skewers stuck through it. He was dressed entirely in furs, of which the cloak must have come from the grandfather of all the bears, though it was none too large for him.
Skrymir took from his bag a slab of Norse bread the size of a mattress, and several hunks of leathery gray meat. These he slapped down in front of the travelers. “All right, youse guys, help yourselves,” he rumbled. “Let’s see some of that salmon, huh?”
Thjalfi mutely handed over a piece of the salmon on which the giant set noisily to work. He drooled, now and then wiping his face with the back of his huge paw, and getting himself well smeared with salmon grease.
Shea found he had to break up his portion of the bread with his knife handle before he could manage it, so hard was the material. The dragon meat was a little easier, but still required some hard chewing, and his jaw muscles were sore from the beating they had taken in the last twenty-four hours. The dragon meat had a pungent, garlicky flavor that he didn’t care for.
As Shea gnawed he saw a louse the size of a cockroach crawl out from the upper edge of one of Skrymir’s black fur leggings, amble around a bit in the jungle of hair below the giant’s knee, and stroll back into its sanctuary. Shea almost gagged. His appetite tapered off, though presently it returned. After what he had been through lately, it would take more than a single louse to spoil his interest in food for any length of time. What the hell?
Loki, grinning slyly, asked: “Are there turnips in your bag, Hairy One?”
Skrymir frowned. “Turnips? Naw. Whatcha want with ’em?”
“Our warlock”—Loki jerked his thumb at Shea—“eats them.”
“What-a-at? No kiddin’!” roared the giant. “I heard of guys that eat bugs and drink cow’s milk, but I ain’t never heard of nobody what eats turnips.”
Shea said: “That’s how I get some of my magic powers,” with a somewhat sickly smile, and felt he had come out of it fairly well.
Skrymir belched. It was not an ordinary run-of-the-mine belch, but something akin to a natural cataclysm. Shea tried to hold his breath until the air cleared. The giant settled himself and inquired: “Say, how come youse is traveling in Jötunheim?”
“The Wing Thor travels where he will,” observed Loki loftily, but with a side glance.
“Aw right, aw right, butcha don’t have to get snotty about it. I just was thinking there’s some relations of Hrungnir and Geirröd that was laying for Thor. They’d just love to have a chance to get even witcha for bumping off those giants.”
Thor rumbled: “Few will be more pleased than I to meet—”
But Loki interrupted: “Thank you for the warning, friend Skrymir. Good is the guesting when men are friendly. We will do as much for you one of these days. Will you have more salmon?”
“Naw, I had all I want.”
Loki continued silkily: “Would it be impertinence to ask whither your giantship is bound?”
“Aw, I’m going up to Utgard. Utgardaloki’s throwing a big feed for all the giants.”
“Great and glorious will be that feasting.”
“You’re damn right it’ll be great. All the hill giants and frost giants and fire giants together at once—say, that’s something!”
“It would give us pleasure to see it. If we went as guests of so formidable a giant as yourself, none of Hrungnir’s or Geirröd’s friends would dare make trouble, would they?”
Skrymir showed his snags in a pleased grin. “Them punks? Haw, they wouldn’t do nothing.” He picked his teeth thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, I guess you can come. The big boss, Utgardaloki, is a good guy and a friend of mine. So you won’t have no trouble. If youse’ll clear outta my glove, we can start right now.”
“What?” All four spoke at once.
“Yeah. My glove, that’s what you slept in.”
The implications of this statement were so alarming that the four travelers picked up their belongings and scrambled out of the shelter with ludicrous haste—the mighty Thor included.
###
The rain had ceased. Ragged serpents of mist, pearly against the darker gray of the clouds, crawled over the hills. Outside, the travelers looked back at their shelter. There was no question that it was an enormous glove.
Skrymir grasped the upper edge of the opening with his left hand and thrust the right into the erstwhile dwelling. From where he stood, Shea couldn’t see whether the big glove had shrunk to fit or whether it had faded out of sight and been replaced by a smaller one. At the same time he became suddenly conscious of the fact that he was wet to the skin.
Before he had a chance to think over the meaning of these facts, Thor was bellowing at him to help get the chariot loaded.
When he was sitting hunched up on the chest and swaying to the movement of the cart, Thjalfi murmured to him: “I knew Loki would get around the Hairy One. When it’s something that calls for smartness, ye can depend on Uncle Fox, I always say.”
Shea nodded silently and sneezed. He’d be lucky if he didn’t come down with a first-class cold, riding in these wet garments. The landscape was wilder and bleaker around them than even on the previous day’s journey. Ahead Skrymir tramped along, the bag on his back swaying with his strides, his sour sweat smell wafting back over the chariot.
Wet garments. Why? The rain had stopped when they emerged from that monstrous glove. There was something peculiar about the whole business of that glove. The others, including the two gods, had unhesitatingly accepted its huge size as an indication that Skrymir was even larger and more powerful than he seemed. He was undoubtedly a giant—but hardly that much of a giant. Shea supposed that although the world he was in did not respond to the natural laws of that from which he had come, there was no reason to conceive that the laws of illusion had changed. He had studied psychology enough to know something of the standard methods used by stage magicians. But others, unfamiliar both with such methods and the technique of modern thought, would not think of criticizing observation with pure logic. For that matter, they would not think of questioning the evidence of observation—
“You know,” he whispered suddenly to Thjalfi, “I just wonder whether Loki is as clever as he thinks, and whether Skrymir isn’t smarter than he pretends.”
The servant of gods gave him a startled glance. “A mighty strange word is that. Why?”
“Well, didn’t you say the giants would be fighting against the gods when this big smash comes?”
“Truly I did:
“High blows Heimdall. The horn is aloft;
The ash shall shake And the rime-giants ride
On the roads of Hell—
“leastways that’s what Voluspö says, the words of the prophetess.”
“Then isn’t Skrymir a shade too friendly with someone he’s going to fight?”
Thjalfi gave a barking laugh. “Ye don’t know much about Oku-Thjor to say that. This Skrymir may be big, but Redbeard has his strength belt on. He could twist that there giant right up, snip-snap.”
Shea sighed. But he tried once more. “Well, look here, did you notice that when Skrymir put his gloves on, your clothes got wet all of a sudden?”
“Why, yes now that I think of it.”
“My idea is that there wasn’t any giant glove there at all. It was an illusion, a magic, to scare us. We really slept in the open without knowing it, and got soaked. But whoever magicked us did a good job, so we didn’t feel the wet till the spell was off and the big glove disappeared.”
“Maybe so. But how does it signify?”
“It signifies that Skrymir didn’t blunder into us by accident. It was a put-up job.”
The rustic scratched his head in puzzlement. “Seems to me ye’re being a little mite fancy, friend Harold.” He looked around. “I wish we had Heimdall along. He can see a hundred leagues in the dark and hear the wool growing on the sheep’s back. But ’twouldn’t do to have him and Uncle Fox together. Thor’s the only one of the sir that can stand Uncle Fox.”
Shea shivered. “Say, friend Harold,” offered Thjalfi, “how would ye like to run a few steps to warm up?”
Shea soon learned that Thjalfi’s idea of warming up did not consist merely of dogtrotting behind the chariot. “We’ll race to yonder boulder and back to the chariot,” he said. “Be ye ready? Get set: go!” Before Shea fairly got into his stride, his woolens flapping around him, Thjalfi was halfway to the boulder, gravel flying under his shoes, and clothes fluttering stiffly behind him like a flag in a gale. Shea had not covered half the distance when Thjalfi passed him, grinning, on the way back. He had always considered himself a good runner, but against this human antelope it was no contest. Wasn’t there anything in which he could hold his own against these people?
The Complete Compleat Enchanter Page 6