01 - The Sea of Trolls

by Nancy Farmer - (ebook by Undead)

  When all was eaten and cleared away, the singing and dancing began. The louts shuffled to one end of the lake while the troll-maidens gathered at the other. The louts preened and displayed their browridges because the maidens would decide whom they danced with. Forath and several others provided the music. It was a strange kind of singing without any words Jack could understand. It echoed around the walls and seemed to vibrate in his rib cage. It was so melancholy, Jack felt tears come to his eyes again.

  “Is that a dirge?” he asked Fonn.

  “Oh, no! That’s a whale-song. Quite cheerful, really. They’re singing about Utgard, our beloved home lost to us forever beyond the sea.”

  If that was a happy song, Jack knew he didn’t want to hear a sad one. He had all he could do to keep from bursting into sobs.

  “Do you mind if I join the dancers?” Fonn said shyly.

  “Of course not,” both Jack and Thorgil cried.

  So Fonn trotted over to the line of troll-maidens. First they fanned out over the lake. They approached the louts, who had worked themselves up into a frenzy of display. One by one the maidens selected a partner by clomping him on the shoulder with one heavy hand. The couples spread out onto the ice.

  Whump! Slide, slide, slide. Whump! Slide, slide, slide. The troll-maidens led their partners around the lake as Forath and the others wailed and moaned an accompaniment.

  “I’m sure Olaf is honored,” Thorgil said, sighing over her cup of cider.

  “I had no idea he was so loved,” said Jack.

  “Yes, well, neither did Heide, Dotti, and Lotti,” said Thorgil with a trace of a smile.

  At the end of the evening, Jack found his way to the queen’s table. He bowed politely and asked, “Are the Norns coming tomorrow?”

  “Perhaps. They’ll arrive when it suits them,” said the queen.

  “Couldn’t you—you know—hurry them up?” The day of Lucy’s sacrifice loomed in Jack’s mind.

  “Nobody hurries Norns.”

  “But if they knew how important—”

  “Listen, little cub,” Glamdis said kindly. “If they mean you to succeed, their coming early or late will make no difference. All will happen as it was intended.”

  “I can’t just sit here and wait!” Jack didn’t mean to be rude—especially to a nine-foot troll-queen—but he was so desperately worried.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to. Fonn can show you around the palace.”

  “She doesn’t have to baby-sit me,” Jack muttered.

  “One thing I do know,” the queen went on. “To ignore joy while it lasts, in favor of lamenting one’s fate, is a great crime.”

  “That’s what Rune told me,” cried Jack.

  Glamdis smiled, showing her dainty fangs. “He learned it from me. Now run along, little two-legged deer. Enjoy these hours before the chess game.” And she turned away to munch on the remains of an elk leg—her third, Jack guessed, from the pile of bones around her feet.

  Jack spent the next day touring the vast palace of Queen Glamdis. He visited the kitchen, the armory, the harem, and the greenhouse. Fonn’s greenhouse was made of sheets of clear ice. The intense mountain sunlight shone through, and its heat was trapped. The walls inside were slick and wet as water trickled down into the soil, but the outer part stayed frozen. A lout threw water over the outside to ensure that the walls stayed thick.

  Jack had never seen grapevines, although he’d seen them painted on the walls of the Roman house. He found other trees that had existed only in his imagination: peaches, apricots, and almonds. All these had been supplied by Olaf from his raids into Italia.

  “He said they couldn’t grow on his own farm,” Fonn explained. “He didn’t have a greenhouse. Dragon Tongue taught me how to build one, to make up for melting a hole in the palace wall.”

  “Just why did he do that?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, there was some argument about Frothi. Frith was still living with us, and Frothi was her full sister. Now, there was a troublemaker if I ever saw one. She caused no end of mayhem at Hrothgar’s hall, and Dragon Tongue had been responsible for her death. Well, if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else.” Fonn didn’t seem grieved by the loss of her half sister.

  “It seems Olaf visited here a lot,” Jack said delicately. He didn’t want to upset Fonn, but he was consumed with curiosity about the relationship between the Northman and the Mountain Queen.

  “Mother was head over heels in love with him,” Fonn said, not the least embarrassed. “She almost never fell for humans, and the behavior of Frith and Frothi taught her how unwise it was to marry one. But Olaf…” The troll-maiden’s eyes became misty. “Olaf was so big and beautiful.”

  Jack remembered Heide saying the exact same thing.

  “Of course, he didn’t want to live here. He had a family in Middle Earth. He came every other year with presents. He brought me seedlings, and he gave Forath a flute and a carving of a whale. He always knew exactly what would please us.”

  “Did he ever give anything to Frith?”

  Fonn gave her barking laugh. “No human in his right mind would go near Frith.”

  “Do you know how she lost her hair?”

  Fonn didn’t. When Jack told her about the sorry events that led up to his trip to Jotunheim, she laughed and laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh! Oh! I wish I’d been there to see it! Frith is obsessed with hair. She nagged Mother until she got a full head of it.”

  “The queen gave her that hair?”

  “Through magic. Frith is a shape-shifter, but when she took human form, her hair was exactly like mine. Mother gave her human hair, which also made it possible for her to keep her human shape more easily. When she lost it, she reverted to being halfway between the worlds. Did she go into a snit?”

  “I’ll say,” said Jack. “Northmen were climbing the walls.”

  “What a treat! Frith’s snits were famous even here.”

  All in all it was a pleasant day. Jack had grown to like the gentle troll-maiden and her silent and melancholy sister. He visited the harem and was made welcome by Bolthorn, Fonn and Forath’s father. He had been Glamdis’ first love, and she still treated him with respect.

  Jack couldn’t imagine being part of a harem, but Bolthorn clearly thought himself honored. “She dragged me right off the ice and threw me into her cave,” the ancient Jotun rumbled, fondly remembering their courtship. “I had scratches all over my browridge!” Jack looked away, embarrassed, without exactly knowing why.

  He found the louts good company, but their personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. They considered it manly—or whatever the troll equivalent was—to be filthy and to never clean their nails or teeth. Perhaps that’s what attracted Thorgil, and they certainly admired her.

  She had turned from a sullen, miserable brat into someone quite likeable. Maybe, Jack thought as he saw her playing Dodge the Spear with a pair of young louts, this was the first time she’d ever been the center of attention. She was tolerated, but not liked, by Olaf’s wives and children. No one was glad to see her except Slasher, Wolf Bane, Hel Hag, and Shreddie, the dogs with whom she’d been raised. This was the first time she’d ever made friends.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  YGGDRASSIL

  “You are not to speak,” said Fonn, settling Jack and Thorgil in a corner. A long table sat in the middle of the hall. Torches burned on metal stands around the walls, and their light flickered on a set of golden chess pieces. Jack recognized the queen piece as the safe-conduct Frith had given him.

  “Is the queen—I mean Mother—going to play chess with the Norns?”

  “She hosts a game,” Fonn said with emphasis. “No one plays chess with the Norns. They play each other.”

  “Doesn’t sound like fun, just watching someone else,” said Thorgil.

  “This is deadly serious,” the troll-maiden said. “You’re here so the Norns can see you, but you’re not to speak unless they ask you something. I�
��ve left you snacks. If you think you’re going to be afraid, now is the time to leave.”

  “We’re not afraid,” Thorgil said stoutly. “I am Thorgil Olaf’s Daughter and this is my thrall.”

  “Ex-thrall,” said Jack.

  “Everyone’s afraid of the Norns,” Fonn said. “You can’t help it. Just don’t knock anything over or bolt from the room.”

  What could possibly be so terrible about something that looked like a woman? Jack wondered. He and Thorgil had already faced a troll-bear and a dragon. He watched nervously as Fonn left. They were alone in the hall. Bowls of fruit and bread sat on the table, so the Norns presumably ate.

  Thorgil selected a honey cake from their own little table. She appeared calm, but her hand trembled. “I think we can talk until they come,” she said.

  “What have you heard about Norns?” said Jack.

  “Rune says they decide when Ragnarok happens.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The final battle between the gods and the frost giants. It’s when everyone dies and everything is destroyed.”

  “That’s a bleak view of the future,” murmured Jack.

  “Odin selects the bravest warriors for this final war. They train each day until it’s time to die.”

  “But they come back to life,” said Jack, remembering something Olaf had said about warriors getting killed and rising to feast all night in Valhalla.

  “Not after Ragnarok. Darkness falls over everything.”

  “Even the gods die?”

  “When the Norns say so, yes.” Thorgil watched the door at the far end of the room. Her hand kept straying to the knife on her leg, but that was merely habit.

  “What could be more powerful than a god?” Jack asked. He, too, watched the door. The torches blazed and wind beat uselessly against the heavy white curtains covering the windows.

  “Time,” said Thorgil. “Rune says the Norns are Time itself. He doesn’t quite understand it and neither do I. Shh!”

  Jack saw the door move and froze. But it was only the Mountain Queen coming to take her seat on the throne. She didn’t look at them, and they knew better than to speak to her. Then all three of them sat and waited.

  Gradually—Jack couldn’t tell exactly when—a presence gathered at the far end of the hall. It was a crowd of people, or perhaps it was only a few. It was hard to tell. The curtains stirred and the torches dimmed. Voices came from a great distance, voices that sent alarm through Jack’s body. They were like something he’d heard in a terrible dream. They murmured of every fear he’d ever experienced—of falling down a cliff or of losing his parents or of being in a dark place where he could weep forever and never be found.

  Thorgil put her hand on his arm. Jack realized he’d been about to do the very thing he’d been warned against: flee the room. Thorgil looked pale. No doubt her own private terrors were being revealed.

  It was a world of loss far more terrible than the songs of vanished Utgard. It was more devastating than the destruction of Gizur Thumb-Crusher’s village. It was Everything Gone. The voices of the Norns whispered about the passing of all that was bright and brave and beautiful. You could only watch it die. You could only go down to defeat and darkness.

  Jack heard a slight noise. He turned and saw Thorgil holding her knife before her. Her message was clear. She would go down bravely, and if fame truly did die, she would still run to meet her fate.

  Jack clutched the rune. A Norn looked up. She was young and fair. She stood at the beginning of the vast procession that shuffled through the hall. Round the table they went. One put her hand out over a bowl of fruit, and it withered. They sat down, and now Jack saw there were only three, though the air shifted and whispered behind them. They arranged the chess set.

  One watched and the other two played. The game went on for a long time. Jack blinked. It seemed as though the chess pieces moved by themselves. They were no longer on a table in a darkened room, but standing in front of houses or tilling fields or shearing sheep. They went about their lives, unaware of the silent Norns watching them, and now and then a hand reached down and took them away.

  The game went on until only a few pieces were left on either side. A Norn with a cavernous mouth and hollow eyes made the final move. Checkmate, she soundlessly murmured.

  The other player, the young and beautiful Norn, bowed her acceptance. The third Norn was far more difficult to see.

  She kept flickering and shifting, like a shadow under a windswept tree.

  Then all three looked up and beckoned to Jack.

  He couldn’t move. His legs had lost their strength, and his mouth had turned bone-dry. Thorgil nudged him. He couldn’t obey. She stood, took his hand, and drew him forth. In her other hand she held the knife. Her face was almost white in the dim light. Merciful heavens, was she going to try to stab a Norn?

  Jack clutched the rune. To his surprise, it responded with a rush of warmth. He squeezed Thorgil’s hand and willed the warmth into her as well.

  It came to him that they were not pawns in a game that only led to destruction. The Norn’s way was not the only one. There was the Bard sitting under a tree in the Islands of the Blessed. There was the sad-eyed woman Olaf had slain during the storm. She surely was on her way to Heaven with her lost daughter. And Mother believed, though she hid this from Father, that souls returned with the sun to be born anew into the world.

  I serve the life force, Jack thought. I do not believe in Ragnarok.

  They walked forward together, and as they went the ice walls fell away and the rustling white curtains vanished. The air was soft on Jack’s face, and a stream flowed along the floor of a little valley with a chuckling sound. On either side were bushes full of raspberries and blueberries. The ground was covered with sweet mountain strawberries.

  “We’re here again!” cried Thorgil. “This is where Mimir’s Well was hiding?”

  The capercaillie stepped out of a thicket with her ten speckled chicks behind her. She lowered her head and clucked softly, deep in her throat. “It seems so,” Jack said uncertainly. “I felt something before, but I was afraid to look for it.” The two of them watched the capercaillie sweep majestically on into a leafy glade.

  “One thing’s the same,” Thorgil said. “Those stupid birds are still going on about their utterly boring lives.”

  Jack led the way. He took them past the field where the snowy owls had collapsed. He found the woodland of apple, walnut, hazelnut, and pear trees. “So this is where you got that food,” the shield maiden said.

  “Listen.” Jack held up his hand. The hum of thousands and thousands of bees rose and fell ahead. It sounded as though you’d have to push them out of the way just to squeeze through.

  “I don’t like bees,” Thorgil said. “I was stung by a lot of them once, when I tried to rob a hive.”

  “They’re all right if you don’t upset them,” Jack said. “My mother taught me a charm to calm angry bees.”

  “I’m not sure… I don’t understand their language as I do Bird, but it seems they’re not angry. And they’re too wild to be merely happy. I’d say they were frenzied.”

  “Berserk?” Jack guessed.

  “Something like that.”

  You’d know, Jack thought. He remembered the kind of mad joy that had possessed Olaf and his men before they slaughtered Gizur’s village. Jack and Thorgil stood for a long time, listening to the incessant hum.

  “Would your charm work on berserk bees?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” he replied.

  “Well, it’s better than nothing.” Thorgil drew both her knives.

  “What are you going to do? Stab all the bees?” Jack said. “We’ve been allowed to come here by the Norns. They’ll either let us get to the well or they won’t. Nothing either of us does is going to change that.”

  Thorgil reluctantly sheathed her knives. She took Jack’s hand, and they went on through the grove. The land gradually inclined upward until it led to a large h
ill. “Look!” Thorgil cried. At the top rose an enormous ash tree—the Ash Tree, Yggdrassil itself rising up and up and up until you could hardly believe human eyes could see that far.

  Branches swept everywhere, teeming with life. All the birds in the world roosted on its arms, and all the insects, too. Some bored into the bark and destroyed it. Some nibbled the leaves. Wherever the Tree went, creatures fed on it, but they also bent it into bowers for their young. Jack saw deer with their fawns, wolves with their cubs, and men and women—for the branches reached into Middle Earth as well—sitting with their children in the leaves.

  The roots plunged down on either side of the hill, some to the World of Fire and others to the icy halls of Hel. A giant serpent coiled in the depths and sank its fangs into the blood of the Tree. But in the high branches a giant eagle fanned its wings and drove the breath of life back into the leaves.

  Up and down the mighty trunk scampered a bedraggled squirrel, shrieking insults. “That’s Ratatosk,” whispered Thorgil. “He carries gossip throughout the nine worlds.”

  At the very top, so far up it seemed to be higher than the moon and yet so clear you were tempted to reach for it, was a golden fence with silver fence posts. Inside lay a heavenly green field and a grove of trees. Many fine palaces and towers rose over this field, but the finest of all had a gate so wide a thousand men could march through it at once.

  “That’s Asgard where the gods live and that’s the gate of Valhalla,” gasped Thorgil. “Oh, tell me if you see Olaf. Oh, I want to go there now.”

  “You can’t,” Jack whispered, holding her. She trembled like a wounded bird. “It looks close, but you could climb a hundred years and get no nearer. I know what this Tree is. It’s pure life force. It’s being chewed on and nibbled at and cut with axes, but it never dies because it’s the earth itself.”

  “Never dies? What about Ragnarok?” cried Thorgil.

  “That’s what the Norns want you to believe in, a future where all that exists is war followed by destruction. But their vision is only one leaf on the Tree. There’s the Islands of the Blessed, where the great queens and heroes go.”