“I’ve got a gift for Heimdallr,” Leif said, suddenly remembering. He pulled a little telescope from his pocket. Even though Sudri had shaped it according to Leif’s sketchiness, in his bare hands over a small fire, it showed a surprisingly clear image. “Maybe if you tell him it will improve his sight, he’ll gloat about that instead of trying to spy on me all the time.”
Loki examined it thoughtfully, trying it out. “A good trick. Give him more to brag about and he’ll be your friend for life—as much as he can be. All right, I’m off with it. And good luck with the tree.”
The god made a quick motion and again the form of Rex appeared, running off swiftly into the night.
Leif picked up the leather bag Sudri had prepared and struck out through the dim light, heading for the place where the sacred apple tree was. Loki had guessed right, though he hoped none of the others got the idea—they were suspicious enough of new ideas to kill first and examine afterwards.
It was as nearly completely dark as Asgard ever became when he reached the place. Against the glow of the sky, he could see the worn old limbs and the weeds around it. He cleared the land with one of the new tools and began spading in lime and fertilizer which the dwarfs had made to his specifications. The feel of the Earth was a welcome relief, after the crazy labors he’d been mixed up in.
He finished with that finally, and began carrying water in the leather sack, washing the fertilizer in. Sometimes now he even began to believe that the gods must win this crazy war. Afterwards—well, he had his one wish. Maybe something could be done with it. And he was no longer sure that the gods could really take over the Earth, even if they tried. They were a lot less powerful than he’d thought at first. Certainly they were lousy horticulturists!
He climbed into the tree and began sawing off the dead wood, pruning it back. It was a small tree, completely unimpressive, and the work was less troublesome than he’d expected. He found one branch where part had already been cut. Had Loki already tried to prune it? If so, he’d mistakenly taken a living branch instead of a dead one, but it would do no harm. Leif moved about, protected from scratches by his armor, painting tar over the cuts. Finally he hauled the brushwood away and stood back, examining the tree again from the ground. It looked lean and plucked now, but the dead wood wouldn’t sap all its energy, and the ground would nourish it.
He rolled the spade and saw into the sack and headed down the trail. Luck had been with him. None of the gods had spotted him, and Heimdallr was probably busy with other things, not looking this close to the center of Asgard.
He turned around a bend in the path and collided sharply with the figure of a woman! Then, as he bent to help her up, he saw that it was Fulla.
Chapter IX
Fulla was moaning slightly as Leif Svensen lifted her, and she winced as he started to release her. Then she stood upright and he took his hands away. Maybe, if he turned quickly, she wouldn’t recognize him. She might suspect, but she couldn’t prove anything.
She started to step toward him, and moaned again, stumbling. He paused, irresolute, but only for a moment. The next second he had scooped her up into his arms and was carrying her off the trail, to a spot where he’d seen a smooth, mossy section a few days before. As he moved with her, she glanced up, and he realized that his face must show against the sky. Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough for recognition, but…”
She jerked a little, before settling back against his armor.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as he dropped her gently onto the moss.
“It’s my ankle. I twisted it. It’s nothing—it’ll be all right in a few minutes.” She winced again as his fumbling fingers undid her sandle and began rubbing the ankle. He moved his hand away, but her hand moved it back. “No, don’t stop. It hurt at first, but now it feels comforting, Lee.”
Lee! Of course—Lee and Leif looked and sounded alike, except that their attitudes colored their expressions. He was puzzled over her guess, though, until the clinking of his armor penetrated his senses. It explained things well enough—he hadn’t been wearing it except when he had to, after the first day, while Lee had apparently grown into his. She must have guessed by that. At least, he could hope it was more than just an expression of her wishes.
“Better?” he asked.
“Mmm. Sit here, Lee. I thought you were with Gefjun tonight. She’ll be jealous if she knows you’re out alone—or worse, if she finds you with me.”
Leif grinned, remembering Gefjun, another of the maiden goddesses. So Lee had been doing all right, even if he hadn’t been meeting Fulla. He tried to call up some of Lee’s mannerisms. “Let her be jealous, Fulla. Who kissed me first—you or Gefjun? Or is that something you’ve forgotten?”
“No.” She slid downward and closer to him. After the unwashed naturalness of most of the females of Asgard, he was surprised to notice that her hair was faintly and pleasantly fragrant. “I began to wonder if you hadn’t forgotten that kiss, though.”
“I’ve got a long memory for pleasant things, Fulla.” It was no good, being mistaken for another man, but it was better than not being noticed at all. The armor was suddenly hot around him, and he was sweating. He reached for the buckles.
She bent to help him with it, and her hands were caressing. At last the heavy mail was off, and she was closer. Her voice was a whisper now. “I haven’t forgotten anything, Lee. But even a goddess can’t remember one kiss forever.”
He tried to laugh as Lee would have laughed. It sounded hollow to him, and the blood was pounding in his ears until the sound must blur even the laugh, but she didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. “There should be a moon now,” he tried to say lightly as he bent forward. “With that, maybe this Asgard of yours could be a true paradise.”
“I could beg Odin for a moon for you,” she murmured. “Or two or more. But can’t the moon you want wait?”
The moon had nothing to do with anything, though, as he discovered. This was already a paradise—a strange, bitter paradise. He tried to forget that she thought he was Lee—to pretend she was saying these things to Leif—and he failed; but even that bitterness couldn’t steal all the pleasure from him.
She sighed softly as he withdrew his lips reluctantly, letting them break slowly from hers. Then her arms tightened again, and she was pulling him down, her mouth demanding. She strained tautly against him as his hand tightened on her back, and her body turned slowly, bringing the flat of her hips against him.
“Oh, Leif! Leif!”
For a second there was only the caress of her voice, small and hoarse in the darkness. Then the words penetrated. He jerked abruptly away, freeing her. “You know me?”
She shuddered, pulling herself slowly up and doing something to her hair. Leif fumbled for a cigarette, and he could see her face white and tense in the light of the match. Her eyes widened as he drew in the smoke, but it was unimportant to her now. Her lashes were dropping as the match went out, her fingers twisting into odd shapes. Her voice was tiny and lost in the space around him.
“I knew, Leif. After a twining—and I went too far with the spell on me to escape—after a twining, there can never be any mistake about the other. You knew me, and you couldn’t have seen me in the darkness.”
It was true enough, he realized. He had sensed who she was, rather than seen. For whatever it was, this twining seemed to have worked on him. She waited, as if asking for help before she went on, but there was nothing he could say. And finally she went on slowly.
“I saw you going this way—and I started to follow, to watch you—to try and hate you. Then I couldn’t just see you and not speak—so I went back. But I came, after all. I thought I’d never find you! And I didn’t hurt my ankle—or even stumble into you by accident.”
“But why the act about Lee, then?”
“I had a plan—I thought. If I met you and you thought I took you for Lee…Then it really wouldn’t count.” Her voice was even lower now, and he bent to listen. “I know how you felt, or I
thought I did. And I wanted you to suffer. I couldn’t mix with Loki’s treason, but if you thought it was Lee I—I liked…somehow, it would be all right for me, then. And you’d be even more miserable afterwards. Oh, Leif, I…”
She dropped her head against his shoulder weakly. “And then—then I couldn’t pretend. You should hate me, Leif.”
He tossed the cigarette aside and turned to her. “I could. I don’t.”
She sighed slowly, relaxing back onto the moss. “Fifty thousand years is a long time to wait.” She pushed the hair back from his head, her long fingers lingering and trembling faintly. “But I’m glad I waited. I’m glad you forced the twining, my beloved.”
He would have told her his own feelings but dawn was creeping up. “We’d better be getting back,” he told her. “I should have taken you home hours ago.”
She nodded, but pulled his arms around her again, snuggling against his shoulder. Her cheek rubbed against his arm, and he lifted one hand to the back of her neck, drawing his fingers around and past the lobe of her ears. Suddenly he felt her body stiffen. She began drawing back, her hand slowly going to her breast, as she slid out of his arms.
“My tree!”
He’d forgotten the blasted tree, but he looked now. Seen in the full light of day, it was a bleak sight, with most of its branches missing, and the thinness of its foliage showing fully. Every scar he’d put on it stood out clearly. It’s poor development and age showed now where the false density of branches had hidden the worst before. And more than ever, the meagerness of its poor crop showed to the world.
Then another gasp came from Fulla, and he looked down to see her staring at the sack sprawled on the trail with saw he had used showing plainly.
There was disbelief in her voice. “You! You ruined the tree—the life of Asgard! My charge…and I—I…”
He caught her shoulders, pulling her around to face him. “Of course I did, Fulla. It was dying from the deadwood and from lack of food in the soil. I did it for the sake of Asgard, to give us more chance for strength at Ragnarok. No—I did it because I couldn’t see you failing your job when I could help. Damn it, I did it because I was in love with you!”
“My tree!” She sagged in his hands, slipping out of them and falling to her knees on the moss. Her eyes remained fixed on the tree, and there were tears in them, while sobs slowly began to wrack her body. “And I trusted you—I loved you. Oh, don’t worry, Loki’s companion. You succeeded in your plan. After this night, I can’t report you to the fury of the Aesir. You made sure of that! But I hate you, hate you, hate…”
“Fulla!” He bent toward her, but she screamed.
“Don’t you dare touch me!”
“Fully, you said you loved me. Can you love me and jump to the first wrong conclusion against me—on circumstantial evidence? Will you listen, let me show you what I did and —>why I did it? Or are you going to go on believing every lie your fears can cook up? Come here, and I’ll prove…”
He bent again, and this time she didn’t scream. Instead, she turned viciously, swinging her right hand—which now had a rock in it.
Leif stood back coldly, spitting out a tooth and blood, without feeling the blow. He was numb and empty.
“All right, Fulla. Tell your damned gods, if you like. Tell them the part you want, and I won’t blackmail you with the rest. Send me to Niflheim, if that will fill your mind with anything more than spite. And when you find what a fool you’ve been, remember I tried to tell you the truth—and that I did love you. I thought you were someone a man could count on. I had not real reason, but I thought a lot of damned fool things. I should have known you were only a goddess like Frigg, and no good without your pedestal. Go climb back on it, then. And if you ever want me, whistle, but don’t hold your breath till I come running! I’m through being pushed around by a girl who couldn’t get herself a husband for fifth thousand years!”
He picked up the sack and slapped it over his shoulder without looking at her. Her painful sobbing went on as he turned down the trail, and something in him hated the sound and ached to go back and still it. The larger part of him was frozen with hurt and anger, and a wish to return ache for pain. Love without respect and trust might do for the gods, but Leif Svensen wanted more than that out of life.
Heimdallr and Loki were doing the impossible by standing together without quarrelling at the foot of the path as he came out of the woods, but he barely noticed that the self-styled son of nine mothers was busily polishing the little telescope and smiling at him. He nodded toward them curtly and went grimly on, heading for the workshop. Sudri would look good to him after what he had been through.
“Leif.” Loki was running to catch up with him. “Arrooo! I’d better get our Lady Fir to bandage that lip. It looks as if Thor had hit you.”
“Grin just once more, Loki,” Leif told him, “and you’ll will Thor had been the one to hit —>you.”
Loki blinked and stepped back, his eyes shrewdly apprising. A touch of malicious amusement showed on his lips. “Oho! So. And our farmer is suddenly turned into a berserk hero. Well, Odin will be happy…”
His grin slipped off as Leif moved toward him. There was a haze in the air and a rattlesnake drew back ugly fangs and made threatening lunges where Loki had been. Leif did not hesitate. He pulled out the automatic, willing himself to see the true form of Loki, and a dim image seemed to form around the snake. He raised the automatic and aimed for the head.
The snake snapped out of existence to reveal Loki again, this time without a trace of amusement. “Enough, Leif. Sometimes I talk like a fool. Let me take that back.”
The anger suddenly evaporated from Leif, taking most of the numbness with it. Only the pain was left. He could feel the starch running out of his system, and made no effort to stiffen again. Loki’s eyes were sympathetic now, as he clapped Leif on the back.
“There was a girl once—about so high…” he said quietly, indicating the point of his chin, but there was a curious edge to his voice. “Only she didn’t stay that high. Giants mature at the same height as men and gods, but like the snakes of old, they keep growing. Sigyn was twenty-one feet tall when we last tried to live together. She called me a ridiculous runt and threw me out. Yet it is strange how I still think of the girl she was—and how she took care of me when I was under the venom punishment, yet could no longer look at me or speak to me. There was a twining there too, perhaps. Well…”
Something like the boom of thunder crossed with the crack of a board breaking rolled over them then, in sound waves that were physical enough to pluck the leaves off the trees. Leif snapped out of his trance.
His worst fears proved true. Above the dwarf cave entrance, a plume of smoke was rising, with a billowing cloud under it that still contained rubble and falling stones. The powder there had obviously exploded, all at once.
Chapter X
A picture of Sudri’s misassorted body coming down in sections jumped into Leif’s mind, and his legs began moving. Loki looked startled, and then came along, matching his leaps. They swept over a rise of ground, and were among the hillocks—darting among boulders and onto the path, while the acridly sweet smell of powder hit their noses.
Leif gave a sick look to the leaning timbers, and then was inside. A yelling voice reached him, and he turned toward it. Sudri was bent over the broken form of Andvari, shouting in the glottal stops and Bantu-like clicks of the stone dwarf dialect, which even the power of Asgard could not make understandable to anyone by a dwarf. The mouth of the old dwarf just barely moved in reply.
Surprisingly, the damage hadn’t been so great as Leif had feared. The solid stone wall separating the front section from the rear still stood, and the explosion had reached only the front entrance and wooden outer building. There were no other bodies.
Sudri saw him then and faced him. “Someone came in and threw a grenade. I yelled. Andvari held back the detonator. It was still partly his to control. We all went to the back, but he had to stay. He w
as too old to hold it long, or carry it far enough, and it went off. More powder went off. But most powder was already in grenades, stored in the rear. You see how it is.”
Leif nodded and turned to the old dwarf, whose pain-filled were raised to his. “Who?”
Sudri shrugged, but the old one motioned, and Leif bent over. There was a gasp as the stone dwarf fought with the unfamiliar soft sounds so foreign to his speech. But he formed them, his eyes showing surprise at the question, and Leif heard.
“Vali Odinsson!”
“I’ll remember that, Andvari,” Leif promised. The old eyes remained fixed on him, and the hand came up in a gesture that might have been meant for a blessing. Then the dwarf dropped back, dead before his head touched the floor.
Sudri touched Leif reassuringly. “Don’t worry about the detonators, boss Leif. Andvari told me the trick in his speech. I don’t understand it at all, but any stone dwarf will know. We have lots of detonators already.”
The foreman turned, shouting back, while the cowering dwarfs began to come out, staring at the wreckage. “You Bifur, Nori, Modsognir, Onarr, Mjodvitnir, Vindalfr, Fundinn, Throin—you fix things. We’ll be back in production in about three hours, boss Leif.”
“Yeah,” Leif said, still staring at the old dwarf. He’d only see the grim old figure a few minutes, yet the death hurt. Leif wondered what he himself would have done had he been left with a bomb he could delay but not stop. And afterward, would his only thought have been to pass on necessary knowledge? There was more to the creatures than the ugly body of one could indicate.
Damn Vali!
He heard the sound of others behind him, and swiveled on his heel to face the crowd that was collecting. “Lee, you can stay if you like—Thor too. The rest of you get the hell out of here before I set Sudri’s crew on you with grenades. Gods, heroes, whatever you are, get out of here! And from now on, anyone who comes too near these caves—even Odin himself—without my okay gets a grenade in his guts.”
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