by Tom Holt
Of course, in order for the sorcerer-king to win or lose, there would have to be a battle; if he could make sure that that battle took place, quickly and on relatively even terms, he could then have a claim on the eventual winner, whoever he turned out to be. Looked at from all sides, that was the safest course, but there was one deadly drawback; he didn’t have the faintest idea where King Hrolf was. He sighed, spat out the marrowbone, and put his socks back on. Just then, the telephone rang. He picked it up without thinking.
‘Olafsen here,’ he said. Who could it be at this time of night?
‘Mr Olafsen?’ It was the governor-presumptive of China Thorgeir groaned; he was not in the mood for young Mr Fortescue.
‘I thought I should tell someone at once,’ said young Mr Fortescue. ‘I’ve just heard that the car that Our Enemies are using,’ and he mentioned the type and registration number, ‘has been traced and seen by a police patrol in Holland Park. I’m there now, in fact. I’m talking to you’ - there was a hint of pride in the young man’s voice - ‘over my carphone. What should I do now?’
Thorgeir muttered a quick prayer to Loki, god of villains, and said: ‘Follow them. For crying out loud, don’t lose them. And keep me posted on my personal number, will you?’
‘Will do, Mr Olafsen. Do you think,’ asked Mr Fortescue diffidently, ‘I could have Korea as well?’
‘Of course you can,’ replied Thorgeir indulgently. ‘So long as you don’t lose that car, you can have Korea and Mongolia as well.’
‘Thanks, Mr Olafsen.’
Thorgeir put the receiver down, and found an unbroken computer terminal. Within a few minutes, he had withdrawn the car from the police computer - the last thing anyone wanted was a cloud of bluebottles getting in the way. Then he sprinted down to the underground carpark and got out his car. Almost before he had closed the door, the phone buzzed.
‘They’re just moving,’ said Mr Fortescue. ‘Going up towards Ladbroke Grove.’
‘Stay with them,’ urged Thorgeir. ‘I’ll be with you shortly. And Tibet,’ he added.
Just as the dial reached £11.65, petrol started to overflow from the tank, and Hildy put the filler nozzle back in its holder and went to pay. Just her luck, she reflected; another thirty-five pence worth of petrol, and she would have got two Esso tokens, which would have been enough for the trailing flex.
Had she been a true Viking, of course, she would have gone on filling, and to hell with the spilt petrol and the fire risk. Reckless courage was the hallmark of the warrior. She looked at her reflection in the plate-glass window of the filling station and, not for the first time, wished that there was rather less of her face and rather more of the rest of her. Short and means well. True. Very true.
As she waited her turn in the queue, it occurred to her that if she bought a couple of Mars bars, she could knock the grand total up over twelve pounds. Shrewdness and cunning are the hallmark of the counsellor, and you don’t have to look like one of those creatures on the magazine covers to be clever. The cashier took her money and handed her one token.
‘Excuse me,’ she said assertively, ‘my purchases were over twelve pounds. I should get two tokens.’
‘Only applies to petrol,’ said the cashier. ‘Can’t you read?’
Someone in the queue behind her sniggered. She scooped up her token and fled.
‘What’s up?’ said the King. ‘You look upset.’
For a split second, she toyed with the idea of asking the King to go and split the cashier’s skull for her, but she decided against it. That would be over-reacting, and the wise man knows when to do nothing, as the Edda says. ‘No, I’m not,’ she replied. ‘Where to now?’
‘Somewhere nice and quiet,’ said the King, ‘where we won’t be disturbed.’
Hildy nodded and started the engine. She drove for nearly an hour in silence, heading for no great reason for the Chilterns. The heroes were asleep, and the wizard was reading a spell from a vellum scroll by the faint light of Zxerp and Prexz.
‘This’ll do,’ said the King.
Hildy stopped the car beside a small spinney of beech-trees and switched off the lights. The car which had been behind her all the way from London drove on past and disappeared round a corner. Hildy breathed a faint sigh of relief; she had been slightly worried about that.
‘I don’t suppose anyone’s considered anything so prosaic as food lately,’ said Brynjolf, stretching his arms and yawning. ‘I had this marvellous dream about roast venison.’ Hildy frowned and offered him a Mars bar.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘You eat it,’ Hildy said.
Brynjolf shrugged, and did as she suggested. Then he spat. ‘No, but really,’ he said. ‘A joke’s a joke, but—’
‘Go turn yourself into a sandwich, then,’ Hildy snapped. ‘I’m exhausted, and I can’t be doing—’
‘All right,’ said Arvarodd wearily, ‘leave it to me. Only it’ll have to be rabbit again.’
‘If I have any more rabbit,’ said Brynjolf, ‘I’ll start to look like one.’
‘That’s a thought,’ replied Arvarodd. ‘Decoy,’ he explained.The two heroes got out of the car and wandered away.
‘That, Vel-Hilda,’ said the King, ‘is heroic life for you. Rabbit seven times a week, and that’s if you’re lucky. Just be grateful you’re not on a longship. Let’s get some air.’ He opened his door and climbed out, stretching his cramped limbs.
‘Will the wizard be all right on his own?’ whispered Hildy. ‘I mean . . .’
‘We won’t go far,’ said the King. ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you, Kotkel?’
The wizard looked up from his scroll, nodded absently, and muttered a spell. On the seat beside him a giant hound appeared.
‘Just a hallucination,’ explained the King, ‘but who’s to know?’
Hildy shrugged, and strolled out into the spinney. It was a still night, slightly cold, and the wind was moving the leaves on the tops of the trees. The King spread his cloak over a stump and sat down. Across his knees he laid his broadsword in its jewelled scabbard.
‘This sword,’ he said, ‘is called Tyrving. You’re interested in the old days. Would you like to hear about it?’
Hildy nodded, and sat down beside him.
‘One day,’ said the King, in a practised storyteller’s voice, ‘the gods Odin and Loki were out walking far from home. Why, I cannot tell you. I always thought it was a strange thing for them to be doing, since by all accounts they hated each other like poison. However, they were out walking, and there was a sudden thunderstorm. Again, it seems strange that Thor should inflict a sudden thunder-storm on his liege-lord and best friend Odin for no reason, but perhaps it was his idea of a joke. Odin and Loki sought shelter in a little house, where they were greeted by a little old woman. She did not know that they were gods, so the story goes - and if you believe that, you’ll believe anything; but she offered them some broth, although she had little enough for herself, and put the last of the peat on the fire so that they might be warm. All clear so far?’
‘Yes,’ said Hildy. ‘Go on.’
‘When the two gods had finished their broth and dried their clothes, they lay down to sleep. The old woman gave them all her blankets, and the pelts of otters for pillows. In the morning the gods woke up and it had stopped raining. “Old woman,” said Odin, “you have treated us kindly.” I don’t know if Odin was given to understatement, but that’s what the story says. “Learn that the guests you have sheltered are in fact the gods Odin and Loki. In return for your hospitality, I shall give you a great gift.” And he drew from his belt his own sword, which the dwarfs had forged for him in the caverns of Niflheim, and gave it to the old woman, who thanked him politely, no doubt through clenched teeth. Odin then put a blessing on the sword, saying that whoever wielded it in battle should have victory. But Loki, who is a malevolent god, put a curse on it, saying that the first man to draw it in battle should eventually die from a blow from it. The old woman put
the sword away safely, and in due course she gave it to her grandson Skjold, who went on to become the greatest of the Joms-vikings. When Skjold was an old man, and had long since given up fighting, he used to laugh at Loki’s curse. But one day he was teaching his little son Thjostolf how to fight, and Thjostolf parried a blow rather too vigorously. Skjold’s sword flew from his hand and struck him above the eye, killing him instantly. Thjostolf went on to lead the Joms-vikings as his father had done, and when he died his son Yngvar succeeded him, and the sword brought him victory. But one day he lost the sword when out hunting, and in the next battle he fought he was killed, and all his men with him. Eventually, the sword came into the hands of my grandfather, Eyjolf, who was Odin’s grandson. That story is supposed to prove something or other, but I forget what.’
Hildy sat still and said nothing. The moon, coming out from behind a cloud, cast a shaft of light through the trees which fell on the hilt of the sword, making it sparkle. The King smiled, and with an easy movement of his arm drew the sword from its scabbard. For some reason, Hildy started to shiver. In the moonlight the blade glowed eerily, and the runes engraved on its hilt stood out firm and clear.
‘Of the sword itself,’ continued the King, ‘this is said. The blade is the true dwarf-steel, but the hilt and furniture was replaced by Yngvar with the hilt of the sword Gram, which Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer bore. The blade of that sword was lost, but the hilt was preserved as an heirloom by the children of Atli of Hungary. In turn, my grandfather Eyjolf had a new quillon added; that came from the sword Helvegr, which once belonged to the Frost-Giants of Permia. My father Ketil added the scabbard, which once housed the sword of the god Frey, and fitted to the pommel the great white jewel called the Earthstar, which fell from the sky on the day I was born, and after which I am named.’ He smiled, and laid his hand gently on the hilt. ‘It’s not a bad sword, at that. A bit on the light side for me, but nicely balanced. Here.’ And he passed the sword to Hildy. For a moment she dared not take it; then she grasped it firmly and lifted it up. She was amazed by how light it seemed, like a living thing in her hands.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said. As she gazed at it, blazing coldly in the moonlight, her eyes were suddenly opened, and she saw, as in a dream, the faces of many kings and warriors, and blood red on the blue steel. She saw the dwarfs busy over their forge in a great cave, vivid in the orange light of the forge, and heard the sound of their hammers, the hiss as the hot metal was tempered, and the scrape of whetstones as the edge was laid. She saw a tall dark figure muffled in a cloak, who watched the work and added to the skill of the smiths the power of wind, tide and lightning. She saw him take the blade in his hands, as she was doing now, and look down it to make sure that it was straight and true. Then, suddenly as it had come, the vision departed, leaving only the moonlight, still flickering on the runes cut into the langet of the hilt. As she spelt out the letters one by one, her heart was beating like a blacksmith’s hammer.
Product of more than one country.
The moon went back behind its cloud.
‘Very nice,’ she said, and gave it back to the King, who grinned and slid it back into the scabbard.
‘For all I know,’ he said, ‘the legends are all perfectly true. True but largely unimportant. Like I said, that’s heroic life for you. Like all heroes have magnificent bushy beards because it’s difficult to shave on a storm-tossed longship without cutting yourself to the bone.’
‘I see,’ said Hildy.
‘And this particular adventure,’ said the King, ‘is all heroic life, too; and you are a heroine just as much as we are heroes. It’s incredibly dangerous, but you haven’t been thinking about that. Just a game, a little reprise of childhood - or why do you think that in the end all the legends of heroes and warriors end up as children’s stories? When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a fisherman.’
‘When I was a little girl,’ said Hildy, ‘I wanted to be a Viking.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘It’s been fun,’ she said, ‘but not in the way I thought it would be. If we do get killed, will we go to Valhalla, across the Rainbow Bridge?’
‘The Rainbow Bridge,’ said the King, ‘is something to be crossed when you come to it. If we fail, then we leave the world in the hands of its natural enemy. But, for all I know, nobody would notice except a few of the leading statesmen. Still, that’s not a risk worth taking. Not only is our enemy very cruel and very evil, he is also very, very stupid. A good magician - the best ever - but I wouldn’t trust him with running a dog-show, let alone the world. And I don’t think, for all his magic, that he could ever become ruler of the world; if he can’t catch us, then he hasn’t got the resources, and anyway I think the world has changed too much, though I don’t suppose he’s realised. But what he would almost certainly do is start enough wars to finish off the human race, one way or another, which would be rather worse. And he’s certainly a good enough magician to manage that.’
‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ said Hildy. ‘We’d better go see how Kotkel’s getting on.’
Just then, Arvarodd came hurrying up. Brynjolf was with him, dragging along a man by the lapels of his jacket.
‘Guess who’s just turned up,’ said Arvarodd.
‘My liege,’ said the man, bowing low to the King. ‘I have come . . .’
‘Hello, Thorgeir,’ said the King. ‘I was expecting you.’
‘Thorgeir?’ Hildy stared. ‘You said he was a wolf or something.’
‘Only sometimes,’ said the man. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Shaggy-wolf story,’ muttered Arvarodd. ‘I found him snooping about in the woods back there. By the way, we couldn’t find any rabbits, so it’ll have to be squirrel.’
‘I wasn’t snooping,’ said Thorgeir. ‘I came here to tell you something that you might like to hear.’
‘How did you find us?’ The King’s face was expressionless.
‘Oh, that was easy,’ said Thorgeir. He smoothed out the lapels of his jacket and sat down, his manner suggesting that he wouldn’t mind at all if they all did the same. ‘You don’t suppose I haven’t known all along, do you?’
‘Of course you didn’t know,’ said the King. ‘Otherwise we’d all be dead.’
‘You’d have been dead if my lord and master knew where you were,’ said Thorgeir patronisingly. ‘I knew all along. He leaves things like that to me, you see, and a lot of trouble I’ve had keeping it from him.’
‘And why should you want to do that?’ asked the King.
‘Guess.’ Thorgeir smiled.
‘For some reason, envy or fear or hatred, you want to betray him to us. Or you wanted to see which of us was more likely to win before you chose sides.’The King raised an eyebrow. ‘Something like that?’
‘More or less.’ Thorgeir scratched his ear, where for some reason a little grey fur still remained. But the King’s eyes were on him.
‘I was born,’ said the King, ‘in the seventh year of the reign of Ketil Trout. In other words, not yesterday. What you meant to say was that owing to your extreme negligence we were able not only to escape the notice of your lord and master, but also to recapture the two earth-spirits we need to overthrow his power. As soon as you realised that we had an even chance of winning, you decided to hedge your bets. By a stroke of good luck - I can’t say what, but I expect I’m right - you found us. You decided to come to me and persuade me to attack at a certain time and place. If I win, you claim to have given me victory. If he wins, you can claim to have brought me to him. Correct?’
‘Absolutely.’ Thorgeir widened his smile slightly. ‘Isn’t that what I said?’
‘More or less.’ The King leant back and thought for a moment. ‘What you will do is this. You will get in touch with your master and tell him that you have found us, that we are weak and unprepared, and that something has gone wrong with our magic. You will do this gladly,’ said the King, ‘because for all I know it may very well be true and, if I lose, you can take the credit, as you originally p
lanned. While we are waiting for our enemy to arrive, you will tell me everything you know about his strength and, more important, his weaknesses. You will do this truthfully, firstly because if you do not my champion Arvarodd will cut you in half, secondly because it probably won’t have any effect on the outcome, one way or another. Is that clear?’
‘As crystal.’ Thorgeir nodded approvingly. ‘But what if he won’t come?’
‘He’ll come,’ said the King. ‘Sooner or later there must be a fight, and I expect your master is as impatient as I am.’
‘But he doesn’t want to come out to you. He wants you to go to him.’
‘Then, why,’ said the King gently, ‘did you imagine that you could save yourself by tempting him to come and fight on even terms? Be consistent, please.’
Thorgeir shrugged his shoulders. ‘And if I do what you ask,’ he said, ‘and if you do win, what will happen to me?’
‘I have no idea,’ said the King. ‘It’ll be interesting finding out, won’t it? I could promise to spare you, or even give you a kingdom in Serkland, but you wouldn’t trust me, now would you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Thorgeir. ‘So that’s settled, then, is it?’
‘Settled.’ The King clapped him on the shoulder. ‘And to make sure, Arvarodd will stand one step behind you all the time with his sword drawn. Arvarodd is bigger than you, at least so long as you are in human shape, and I fancy he doesn’t like you after your confrontation earlier this evening. Now, tell me all about it.’
So Thorgeir told him.
‘But why there?’ said the sorcerer-king for the fifth time.
‘I thought we agreed . . .’
Thorgeir glanced over his shoulder at Arvarodd. ‘Because it may be your last chance at anything like decent odds,’ he said. ‘It’s worth the risk, believe me. Listen, Hrolf and his men have got those two spirits back. They broke into the office and rescued them.’ He held the receiver away from his ear. Judging by the noises that come out of it, this was a wise move. When they had subsided, he said: ‘I know, I’m sorry, it’s not my fault. But I followed them here, and it’ll be a couple of hours before they get the brooch wired up. There’s still time.’