by Andre Norton
Though it was day by the time they reached the bank of that dark and threatening stream, no sun warmed the sky. Nor could they see any clouds, but only a gray light hardly clearer than night dusk. Through that shone the glow of the cursed treasure. Yet there was that about it which also beckoned one, made a man wish to seize it piece upon piece.
Gems lay there, set in crowns of kings long forgotten, bracelets and necklets, and rings, jewel-hilted swords, blazoned shields, all tumbled together in heaps. And from one to another of these crawled the guardian on his ceaseless rounds.
The dull light, and also a kind of mist which arose from the treasure, were such that one could not clearly see Fafnir. That he had ever existed in the form of a man Sig found hard to believe. This creature was as great as the giant Griph, yet it crawled upon its belly, holding a horned head but a little above the ground. A long tail dragged behind it and the stumps of small wings were on its shoulders.
They could see on the further bank a smoothed rut in the clay leading down to the water’s edge. Perhaps that marked Fafnir’s path to drink.
“Would you swim?” Regin-Mimir squatted on the bank, gazing down into the water. Now he took his staff and this he pushed into the flood as if testing for a ford. There was a flurry and a swirling of water. He gave a cry and jerked back. But what he held now was only half a staff. The rest was gone, as if sheared off by giant jaws.
“It would seem,” Sigurd said, looking at this grim proof of what lay beneath the surface, “that swimming is not the answer.”
Regin-Mimir glanced at him slyly, and Sig liked less and less what he guessed might lie at the back of those eyes which were no longer a man’s eyes.
“How, then, do you reach that which you have come to slay?”
Even as he spoke there came a boat on the river. From whence it came, and why they had not sighted it before, Sig did not know. It was like one of the small craft used on lakes by fall-time hunters of wild fowl, and a single man sat in it, making easy play with the oars. Sig half expected each time the oars dipped into the water to see them rise again splintered and riven, yet they remained whole and unscarred.
The man who used them wore a hood of blue, though his head was bent so that in this half light they could not see his face. But Sig did not doubt that there was a patch over one eye on that face. And he shivered a little, took a tighter grip upon his staff.
“Hail, Sigurd Volsung!” The stranger brought the boat to the bank and stepped out of it to face them. Though he did not tie the craft, yet it did not drift with the current but remained fast.
“Hail, All Father!” This time Sigurd dared give name to the other. “Being who you are, you know the reason for our coming.”
The one eye seemed to rest not only on Sigurd but on his companions also. And Sig could not look away. What could they do save as the Norns decided when Odin All-Father himself took a hand in their future?
“The reason is known,” said the stranger. “No man, no, or Asakind can turn or alter the weaving of fate and fortune. Since the beginning of this venture was partly of my doing, so now I must aid in the ending. No mortal man or Asakind can meet Fafnir in open battle. So thus you must do: Once a day, close to eventide, Fafnir comes to drink at the river—you can see the path he has worn over there across the water. Do you dig a pit there, and put on it a light covering of earth, hiding yourself thereunder. Then when Fafnir passes above you, stab upward into his softer lower parts, which is the only place even Balmung can find entrance.”
“For your aid, All Father, are we grateful.”
The stranger shook his head slowly. “For that thanks wait until your life’s ending, Sigurd King’s-Son. For good does not always give birth to good. Sometimes evil comes instead. However, this is your fate and so it must be. And the plan is the best I can give you.”
He turned then and took a step or two from them and was gone. But Regin-Mimir scuttled forward and laid hand upon the boat, looking over his shoulder to say eagerly, “There is but little time to make the trap. Let us go, Sigurd King’s-Son, soon to be Sigurd Fafnir’s-Bane.”
So they passed across the river, Sigurd taking one oar, Sig the other. Regin-Mimir played no part in that rowing, looking ever to the other bank as if by his eagerness alone he could hasten their progress. They found the track of the dragon and it was as deep as Sigurd was tall; also its walls were encrusted with slime that gave off an evil smell to sicken a man. Nor were there any lack of warnings of what had happened to those who dared enter Fafnir’s land. A skull rolled from Sig’s foot as he took an unwary step. And there lay a sword, its blade half melted away.
Sigurd leaped down into the center of that noisome way and with Balmung he hacked at the earth packed down by the dragon’s foul weight. The slimed soil he so loosened he passed up to Sig, who bore it away in a bag made of his cloak to dump in another place. Again Regin-Mimir took no part in their labors. Rather, he sat hunched together like a great gray spider, staring out to that plain where the treasure fires burned and Fafnir crawled to make sure not a single piece had been taken away.
At last they were done, for Sigurd could fit himself into the pit he had hacked out. Then Sig dropped down and spread out his befouled cloak over Sigurd, over its surface sprinkling the disturbed earth, until he hoped that it looked as it had before their coming. Then he climbed out once more and went to Regin-Mimir, touching him on the arm. The Master Smith seemed to awaken from a dream, for he arose stiffly to go to the boat. This time he, too, lent his strength to an oar, and they rowed back to where they had left Greykell and their other horses. Those stood with bent heads from their great weariness.
Now there was only the waiting, and Sig found that the worst of all. At last the dusk, which here was day, became darker so that the treasure fires burned brighter. As Fafnir’s monstrous shadow turned from them to the river path, Sig gripped his staff so hard that his nails bit into its wood and his hands ached. To see that great scaled thing slip along the rut its body had worn in the earth was a fearsome sight. And Sig knew then that he was of no hero blood to lie now as Sigurd lay, enduring until the time came for attack.
The dragon’s body slipped on, and now the horned head was very close to the river. Had Sigurd been smothered, crushed by its passing? Surely he would have struck before this—!
But even as Sig’s fear swelled, the forepart of the dragon reared high, and from its throat came such a sound as made the very ground about them tremble. Its tail lashed and beat upon the earth, driving deep into the surface any rock it chanced to strike. From a gaping hole in the belly poured a dark stream of foul liquid. Writhing, Fafnir reached the river, and now his head went down and he bit at his own wound as if to punish it for the hurt it caused him.
Twisting, turning, the dragon fought death, until his great body reared once too often and he toppled into the water, where wings, great-nailed limbs, dangerous tail, beat the dark liquid into a stinking froth. Around him all the water was troubled, as those who lived within its depths gathered for such a feasting as they had never expected. So a second battle raged. Sig found he could not watch, but hid his face in his hands, and tried not to listen either.
By some good fortune the struggle in the river did not wreck or bear away their boat. When Sig dared to look, and there was no more disturbance in the water, he ran to the craft and readied oars.
“Master!” He called to Regin-Mimir, who sat still upon a rock gazing at the river with a strange smile on his lips. “Master, we must go to Lord Sigurd!”
“Ay.” The Master Smith arose and came to take up one of the oars. And he pulled with a will to match Sig’s, as they sent the boat over water.
Hardly had they touched the shore so torn by the dragon’s last struggles than Sig leaped up it and ran to Fafnir’s path. For Sigurd had not come forth from that hiding place and the boy feared that the worst must have happened—that in slaying he had also been slain.
The trenchway was half full of the dark liquid which had g
ushed from Fafnir’s body, and from it a great stench arose. Sig prepared to plunge into it, poisonous though it was. However, as he reached the place where he thought the pit must be, there was movement. And out of that stinking flow arose he whom they sought, but so bedaubed and encrusted he did not seem a man. And he staggered and wavered as if wounded.
Somehow Sig drew his lord forth and wrenched off his own kirtle for want of a better cleanser to wipe the slime from Sigurd, who was gasping as if he could not draw enough air into his laboring lungs.
“Lord, where are your hurts?” Sig worked frantically to clean away the muck and see how badly the other had suffered.
But already Sigurd stood straighter and breathed more freely. “No hurts,” he panted. “It was but the stench of the beast and that which flowed from it. Balmung did well its work. Fafnir is dead, the treasure freed.”
Again and again he thrust the great sword deep into the ground to clean its blade. Then with Sig he turned to look over the plain where lay the piles of riches. Though the dark of night was full upon them, the fires lit by the dragon’s hoard allowed them to see not only what lay there but the stark land itself.
And running from one heap to the next was a small, shrunken figure. Here it plucked a crown and held it high, only to let it clatter back again. There it swung a glittering necklace as a slinger swings his weapon before he hurls the stone. Again it kicked at a shield and sent it clanging. Then it flung forth its arms as if to gather to its shrunken chest all that lay there, to hold it so forever.
Regin-Mimir! But where was the wise Master Smith whom Sig had known for most of his short life? This—this creature was not him. Regin-Mimir was changed, perhaps not into a dragon, but—
Suddenly the figure capering among the piles of treasure turned to face them. And Sig saw lips pull tight against teeth in a grin which was not that of a man. The figure swooped upon a pile of glitter and came up with a flashing thing in one hand. Then it ran toward them with a speed greater than Greykell’s gallop.
“Mine! Mine!” Regin-Mimir screeched as he came. “Mine the treasure. Death to those who would take it!”
He took no measures for defense but, wild of eye, rushed at Sigurd. Sig saw that what he held was a long-bladed dagger, very bright and keen of edge. But Balmung arose and Sigurd struck.
The stooped and withered body, which had drawn age more and more about it as a cloak during these past hours, fell. Yet still the head strained upward from the hunched shoulders, and out of that twisted mouth came one last word, flung as a challenge: “Mine!”
Sig shrank back. Sigurd unfastened his stained and bedraggled cloak and stooped to throw it over the huddled form.
“He was a master smith and once a man of honor,” he said in a low voice. “He could not slay his dragon, but was slain thereby.”
“His dragon?”
“Ay. Greed was his dragon, and it bides here still. So Fafnir shall guard, though he be dead. The treasure is rightly cursed. Let who dares lift it. But it is better to leave it here until the end of the world.”
And Sig, watching those pale, ghostly lights burning here like damning fires, knew this to be the truth.
So in the end they rode forth from the waste, leaving it all behind them. On they went to fulfill the weaving of the Norns, living the lives allotted to them.
3
Sirrush-Lau
“Let it lie as Sigurd Fafnir’s-Bane said, let it lie—”
The words echoed around in the dusty, gloomy room. Sig raised his head. His hands were before him, gripping the table edge so hard they ached. He should have been holding a staff—and where was the river—the mountains—Greykell and the other horses? He shook his head, trying to throw off the remnants of that dream. Or had it been a dream? So real—so very real! You did not eat in dreams, or get tired, or feel. Sigurd had been real, and Mimir, and Fafnir—
There was Fafnir still before him, silver-bright. Sig raised his hand to sweep away the pieces of the puzzle he had so painstakingly put together—the silver dragon. But somehow he could not touch it. It would be—it would feel—NO!
He pushed back the chair so hastily it fell with a bang to the floor. Outside there was a flash of lightning and he knew where he was, though he was not yet sure just what had happened to him. He only knew that he wanted to get away—go home—
Sig ran, out of the room, back to the old kitchen. The rain was beating in through the open window. But he remembered there was something else—the table—Ras—
He hesitated as he reached the window. Least of all did he want another fight now. But he did not, could not, leave Ras shut in the basement. Sig dashed for the table against the door, gave it furious jerks with all the strength he could muster, pulling it farther away from the door. Then he waited no longer, making for the window, and the rain and dark beyond.
The overgrown bushes of the unkempt garden caught at him as he plunged on, by the shortest way, to that outer world he could believe in. But the other world was a part of him still. He could see in his mind the forge with Sigurd King’s-Son beating out the mighty sword, the forest hall of Mimir-Regin, the long journey to reach the terrible, blasted land of Fafnir.
Treasure! That word, which had always been so exciting, meant something different now. Fafnir had taken the treasure and turned from man into monster because of his greed for it. Mimir, who had been Sigurd’s master and good friend—when the treasure had lain before him, he, too, became a monster, in another way. Then Sigurd had made his choice, to leave the evil, and so he had gone away a hero.
Sig went over and over those memories as he ran for home. It must be awfully late. Dad would be there, he would want to know where Sig had been. But if he told, no one would believe him! Just as he could not make up any story, either. Sig Clawhand could not have lied his way out of trouble. If Dad did ask any questions he would have to tell the part about going into the old house, finding the puzzle. But telling the rest—that he could not!
There was no one home. When he came in the kitchen door he glanced up at the clock on the shelf, stared at it in disbelief, and then went over to shake it. Five o’clock—only half an hour—he had only been away half an hour!
Still finding that hard to believe, Sig shrugged out of his wet raincoat. He had beat Dad home after all, and he would not have to tell. But still tugging at his mind was the thought of Ras.
He had heard nothing from the basement when he pulled aside the table he had used to bar the door. What if in the dark down there Ras had fallen, or been hurt? No one knew he was there, no one but Sig. It would be Sig’s fault if Ras was lying now at the foot of the steps in the dark, maybe with a broken leg, no one knowing—
Slowly Sig looked at the clock again, being prodded into doing what he least wanted: going back to the house, making sure that Ras was all right. Dad would come for sure if he left now, then Sig would have to explain everything.
Ras was tough, he was probably already out of the basement and on the way home. But if he were not? Sig buttoned up his slicker. He picked up the note his mother had left, took out his ballpoint, and added a line. At least Dad would know that he had been home and would be back.
Not daring to stop, bcause if he did he might not be able to make himself go back through the rain and the dark to the house, Sig started out.
Ras sat in the dark. He had explored with his hands earlier, knew that he was on a stairway. What lay below he did not want to know. He had yelled, that was while he was still angry. Then his anger had gone, as if the cold from below had frozen it out of him, and he was only afraid. After that he had called and pounded on the door. But everything was so quiet that he knew Sig must have walked right out of the house and left him!
What was it about the box that had upset Sig so? Funny how Ras had been able to find it so easily, just as if Sig had left a sign pointing to it, the way his tracks had shown up so plainly in the floor dust and that sheet had been left pulled crooked with the box just shoved under it.
No one knew he was here, no one was going to come looking for him. He was on his own and he would have to get out by himself. Ras went back up to the stubborn door, laid the palms of his hands flat against it and shoved, though that did not seem to do any good. But he did not give up trying, and that little crack of light now showing around the edge was better than the dark in the other direction.
Then he heard the pounding of feet running across the old floor boards. He had been listening so hard for that. Sig—Sig was coming back, and in a big hurry, from the front of the house. What had he been doing all this time? It seemed to Ras in the dark that he had been here hours at least.
He pushed against the door. Sig had to let him out! He couldn’t go away and leave Ras penned up in here, or could he? Just the sort of trick a whitey would play. Shaka said never to trust—Ras opened his mouth to yell. But those steps were coming toward the door now. Don’t let Sig know he was ready to call for help—never let him know that! Say nothing, just jump him when he got the door open.
Ras heard the grate of the table on the floor, waited for Sig to open the door. But instead there was a sound, quickly lost in a clap of thunder, of feet moving off. Ras threw himself at the door. It opened farther than it had before, then banged against the table again, but now there was a crack large enough for Ras to squeeze through. A moment later he was in the kitchen.
What had Sig been doing all this time in the house? The window was still propped open, rain coming in. It was late, Ras knew he had better be getting home. Still his curiosity held him, he had to know what had kept Sig there. He had a flashlight of his own, smaller than Sig’s, but it would give him light enough. That box of jigsaw pieces, why was it so important? Had Sig spent all this time finding another hiding place for it?