‘Bring it on,’ said Thor. ‘You’ll see. There’s no one in Asgard to rival me, not even Allfather himself.’
‘All right,’ said Utgard-Loki. We followed him back into the hall, where a servant brought to his table a cleverly fashioned sconce-horn. ‘Most of my people like to drink from this, my ceremonial horn. Our very best drinkers can drain it in a single draught. Most of the rest can drain it in two. Let’s see what you can do, little Thor.’
Thor was red in the face by now. He wasn’t used to ridicule, and jokes about his size were never likely to go down well. I looked at the horn. It was very long, but Utgard-Loki hadn’t seen Thor drink. I thought that maybe this time, he’d underestimated the gods.
Thor took a deep breath and raised the drinking-horn to his mouth. Then he began to drink, taking giant gulps of the stuff inside. To me, it smelt like some kind of beer; weak; a little salty. I was sure that the draught would prove no match at all for the Thunderer. But when Thor put it down at last, gasping for breath, and looked inside, the level seemed barely to have dropped.
‘Never mind,’ said the giant king. ‘That’s still quite a respectable draught for such a little man as yourself. Try again. Twice should do it. Even the women and children here can do it in three.’
Thor said nothing, but drank again. I could feel the rage coming off him. The muscles in his neck worked; he drank until he was red in the face . . .
But when he finally put down the horn, it seemed to me that the level of beer had barely dropped more than an inch or so.
Thor shook his head like an angry dog.
‘Well, if that’s the best in Asgard,’ said Utgard-Loki with a smile, ‘I wonder you’ve kept it safe for so long. Your enemies must be very gullible, believing everything they hear about your strength and prowess.’
‘My strength!’ said Thor. ‘You can test it. What sort of weights do you have in here?’
Utgard-Loki looked amused. ‘I’m not sure I should be encouraging you to make a fool of yourself this way. But some of our youngsters play a game called “Lifting the Cat”. Perhaps you could try. I wouldn’t normally suggest it to a man of your stature . . .’ he smirked, ‘but maybe you’ll surprise us.’
He made a curious clicking noise, and a cat snaked out from under one of the tables. It was quite a large cat; black, with sleepy yellow eyes.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ said Thor.
‘Why, lift it from the floor, of course. Don’t do yourself an injury; it’s a big cat, and you’re a bit on the small side.’
Thor growled and squared his feet and grabbed the cat in both hands. Then he lifted it high in the air – but the cat just arched its back and purred, and its feet stayed firmly on the ground. Thor tried to get a better grip, but the cat seemed boneless; it rolled and squirmed and Thor had no more luck than before. At last, Thor grabbed the cat squarely around the body. Grunting and cursing with the effort, he lifted it right over his head and stretched his arms as far as he could . . .
The cat stopped purring and lifted one paw from the ground.
Sarcastic applause from the giants. Thialfi put his head in his hands. Thor turned to Utgard-Loki in rage. ‘I’ll wrestle you,’ he said. ‘No tricks. No cats. No games. I’ll wrestle you.’
‘Who, me?’ said Utgard-Loki. ‘Oh, please. I thought you might have learnt a little humility by now. There’s no one in this hall who’d agree to wrestle a little man like you. It wouldn’t be fair – and it wouldn’t reflect well on any of us to try.’
‘You’re afraid to fight me,’ said Thor.
‘Not at all,’ said the giant king. ‘But I might do you an injury. I’ll tell you what – my old nurse sometimes likes to wrestle. She’s tougher than she looks, and she’s used to dealing with children.’ He raised his voice. ‘Elli! Come over here!’
A very old woman came into the hall. White-haired, bent like driftwood; bright eyes in a face that was nothing but wrinkles. Thor clenched his teeth so hard that it hurt to watch. But the old lady cackled and crowed when she heard that he wanted to wrestle.
‘Fine!’ she said, and threw down her stick. ‘I haven’t been this close to a man since my old husband died. Let’s see what you’re made of, big boy!’ And she threw herself at the Thunderer.
‘What about me?’ hissed Roskva, who was watching the proceedings with interest. ‘Don’t I get a chance to compete?’
‘Don’t be silly. Girls don’t compete,’ said Thialfi, still breathing heavily. ‘Girls are meant to sit and watch, and maybe bring their brothers a drink?’
Roskva kicked him, hard, in the shin.
‘Ouch!’
For the first time that day, I grinned.
Meanwhile, Thor and Ellie were locked in earnest combat. To begin with, Thor had held back, afraid to do the old woman harm. But very soon he had realized that she was stronger than she looked. The crooked old body was far from frail, and when he tried to throw her, she held her position fast, and laughed, and worked her bony fingers around all his most sensitive pressure points, so that he was obliged to go on the defensive just to avoid being thrown himself.
Suddenly the old woman twisted, locking Thor’s arm as she stepped behind him. Thor tried to escape the lock, but he had been thrown off balance; he fell to one knee.
The giants roared.
Thor went red.
Thialfi looked at Roskva and I felt their disillusionment. That terrible moment when a god turns out to be no more than a man – it was almost heartbreaking. I, too, was tarnished with failure; in the eyes of our young friends, we would never be gods again, just beaten, second-rate heroes.
Damn it, that hurt. I began to see that celebrity wasn’t all hot girls and free beer. It’s also the curse of expectation – and the bitterness of falling short. Perhaps that was why I’d always been so suspicious of fatherhood; perhaps I’d known instinctively how much that disillusion would hurt if I saw it in the faces of my boys.
‘Enough,’ said Utgard-Loki. ‘We’ve tested our guests to their limits. Now it’s time for us all to relax – it’s getting late. We’re all tired.’
We spent the rest of the evening eating, drinking and listening to music played by the king’s servants. No lutes in Utgard, thank the gods, but lots of heavy guitars, playing complicated, interminable solos. In victory, Utgard-Loki was as genial as he’d previously been rude; offering us the best cuts of meat, the best seats at his table. We didn’t enjoy the experience much – Thor and I were too ashamed, and Thialfi and Roskva were suffering from a serious emotional let-down – but the giant king was at pains to make the rest of our stay as pleasant as he could. We slept on soft beds covered in furs, and in the morning, when we rose, our host was there to greet us. Once more he plied us with food and drink, although the rest of his people were still asleep on the floor of the hall, and then he accompanied us out of the gates and back to the ridge of mountains.
‘This is where I leave you,’ he said, stopping at last to address us. None of us had been especially talkative on the way out of Utgard. Thor was still angry about his defeat; Roskva was sulking because no one had asked her to demonstrate her skills, and Thialfi was still limping. Face it, we’d all been humiliated, and we wanted to forget the experience as soon as we could.
‘So, what did you think of my city?’ said Utgard-Loki with a smile. ‘What kind of impression do you think you made on me, and on my people?’
Thor shook his head listlessly. ‘I think we’re all more than aware we didn’t exactly shine,’ he said.
Once more Utgard-Loki smiled. ‘Let me tell you this,’ he said. ‘If I’d known how strong you were, Asa-Thor, and how powerful the gods of Asgard were in comparison to my folk, I would never have let you within a hundred miles of the city. Do you know you were nearly the death of us all?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Thor, perplexed.
But I was beginning to guess at the truth. The city was filled with glamours. The great hall had been thick with th
em, far too many to identify. A game of smoke and mirrors, I thought; enhanced by powerful runelore. And the giant king? A trickster, Skrymir had told us; a trickster to rival even the Trickster himself.
‘I think I do,’ I told him. ‘You were Skrymir, weren’t you?’
Utgard-Loki gave a smile. ‘That’s right. I was Skrymir. I saw you coming from afar, and wanted to find out who you were, and what kind of threat you might pose to us. Remember the pack with the food inside? I fastened it with the rune Naudr, the Binder, so you couldn’t open it. And later, when Thor tried to smash in my skull with that pretty hammer of his – nice weapon, by the way, but it’s what you do with it that counts – he may have thought he was striking me, but in fact he was aiming for that ridge – the one with the three square-shaped valleys. The valleys are Thor’s hammer-blows.’
Thor isn’t what you might call especially quick on the uptake. He pondered the giant’s words for a while, then frowned and said: ‘And after that?’
‘My man Logi, who beat Loki in the eating contest.’ Utgard-Loki winked at me. ‘That was Wildfire in his elemental Aspect, which is why he looked familiar – and why he ate the trencher as well as the food inside it. And Thialfi, who raced so fast that I could hardly believe his speed, was racing against Hugi, the speed of Thought. And as for you, Asa-Thor . . .’ He turned once again to Thor, whose face was slowly turning red. ‘The drinking-horn from which you took such great draughts – that was a funnel that led to the One Sea, and you’ll see for yourselves when you return how far back the tide has receded. The cat was the World Serpent, that circles the Worlds with its tail in its mouth, and you lifted it so high into the air that you almost dragged it out of the ocean. And as for my old nurse, Ellie . . .’ Utgard-Loki shook his head. ‘That was an Aspect of Old Age, and she only wrestled you to one knee.’ He paused and looked at us all in turn.
‘That’s why,’ he said, ‘this is goodbye. You’ll never see me or my city again. My glamours will hide us for ever. Your people might search a thousand years and still you’d never find us. Let’s chalk this up to experience, shall we? Live and let live, that’s what I say.’
At this, Thor’s face went purple. He grabbed Mjølnir and raised it. But before he could use it, the Trickster of Utgard shifted Aspect and disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint scent of burning and a signature that led deep into the earth. And turning back towards Utgard, we saw that where the gleaming city had stood – its walls, its gates, its shining spires – there was nothing but grasslands and plain, unmarked as far as the eye could see.
‘Wow,’ said Thialfi. ‘Just – wow. Wait till I tell the people at home about this.’
I looked at him. ‘If I were you, I’d keep that story to myself.’
Thor growled: ‘This isn’t over.’
I shrugged. It was, and he knew it.
‘Face it,’ I said. ‘We’ve both been had. Any more fuss and the story will spread right across the Middle Worlds. Let’s go home. If anyone asks, we were never here.’
And so we went back to Asgard as if nothing had happened. We dropped off Thialfi and Roskva at their parents’ house on the way – we’d both had enough of celebrity, applause and expectation by then – and we drove home through the back roads, staying in human Aspect and keeping a low profile.
Neither of us mentioned our trip to the land of the midnight sun, though sometimes, looking at Odin, I wondered if he knew more than he was saying. In spite of that, the story spread all over the Middle Worlds, rivalling even that of Thor’s wedding to Thrym in popularity. Soon everyone knew the tale of how the Trickster had been beaten at his own game. Some laughed; some jeered; some were sympathetic. And some seemed to take my defeat to heart, as if I’d deliberately let them down.
Thor’s reputation did better, I think. After all, intelligence had never been his strong point. But mine never quite recovered. I’d shown myself to be fallible – never a good move for a god – and the grudging respect I’d earned had all too soon been eroded. That was all Thor’s fault, of course. He was the one who’d insisted on picking up Thialfi and Roskva. He was the one who’d decided to go to the land of the midnight sun. And he was the one who’d demanded that we go to Utgard.
But just like that, the bubble had burst. That eerie sense of contentment was gone. My fame had once more become mere notoriety. The snarl of barbed wire was back in my heart, and whenever I looked at my twin sons, I saw their disappointment.
That was what did it. That look in their eyes. And that was why, as time went by, I became increasingly aware of my damaged mouth; my damaged soul; my damaged reputation.
I’d always been a man of words. Now, my words deserted me. I spent too much time in my hawk Aspect; I slept too little; I drank too much mead. And all the time two little words chased each other around my head like Odin’s ravens.
Two words; one goal.
Get Thor.
LESSON 10
Feathers
A bird in the hand will leave you with birdshit on your fingers.
Lokabrenna
OF COURSE, that wouldn’t be easy. Thor was almost indestructible. Even without Mjølnir, his fireproof gauntlets, his belt of strength, he was a force to be reckoned with. Not that I meant to use force; Thor’s besetting weakness was trust, and that was what I meant to exploit.
The first step was to create the trap into which I was to lure him. This proved harder than I’d thought – not because Thor didn’t have any enemies – in fact, the Worlds were littered with folk who were keen to do him harm – but because no one would believe that I could ever betray him. Our fame had given rise to some underserved rumours of friendship between us, besides which my own reputation as a master of deceit meant that whomever I tried to recruit would immediately (and unfairly) assume that I was not to be believed.
No, straightforward recruitment was out. I had to do something subtle. Something that would persuade the mark that my idea was his idea.
A long con, in effect.
And so I assumed my hawk Aspect and went to visit the Ice Folk. It was my first time in that region since Thrym’s death, and the mark was Thrym’s successor, a brutal warlord named Geirrod. I knew him by reputation; I knew that he was ambitious; I knew that he thought he was smart; I knew that he liked hunting with hawks and that he had an unusual way of snaring the birds he meant to train. I also knew that he hated Thor, who happened to have killed one of his relatives, which made him the ideal target for the plan I had in mind.
Still, after the deaths of Thiassi and Thrym, no warlord of the Ice Folk would have dreamed of making a deal. No, I had to approach Geirrod in a way that would lead him to believe that he had got the better of me – not an appealing prospect, I know, but you have to speculate to accumulate. And so I flew to Geirrod’s camp, where the man himself was training hawks, settled on a branch nearby, and let events take their course.
The trap was simple, but effective. The hunter had spread a kind of glue onto the branches of the tree on which I’d chosen to rest a while. When I came to fly away, I found that my feet were stuck to the branch, and before I could react, I was caged. What a humiliation.
Of course, I kept to my hawk Aspect throughout the unpleasant procedure, biting and screaming and flapping my wings. Geirrod’s keen, acquisitive eyes brightened as he looked at me.
‘This one has spirit. I’ll train him myself. I’ll put him in jesses and feed him scraps. He’ll make me a fine hunter.’
I glared at him. He looked amused. I didn’t like being kept in a cage, or being put into jesses, but there was glam around Geirrod, and I knew he’d recognize me quickly enough. He called over his daughters, two rather plain girls called Gjalp and Greip, and together they stared into the cage at Your Humble Narrator.
‘There’s something funny about this hawk,’ said Geirrod. ‘Have a look at his eyes.’
I closed my eyes and tried to look asleep.
‘Who are you?’ said Geirrod. ‘Name yourself.’
&n
bsp; I, of course, did no such thing.
He tried a cantrip then – a named thing is a tamed thing – which, if I had been a regular bird, would have confirmed my innocence. But, though I did not reveal my name, my ability to hide it from him told Geirrod all he needed to know.
So he opened the cage again and grabbed me tightly by the throat. I struggled and tried to bite him, but Geirrod was used to handling hawks.
‘I know you’re no ordinary bird,’ he said. ‘Tell me your name, or you’ll suffer.’
I guessed I’d suffer a whole lot more if he suspected he was being had. And so I continued to play dumb, and said nothing.
‘All right,’ said Geirrod. ‘I can wait. We’ll see how you feel in a week’s time.’ And he opened a massive, iron-bound chest and thrust me, struggling, inside. Then he slammed down the heavy lid and left me there, in the airless dark.
Not Yours Truly’s finest hour. The chest was locked. I was hungry and scared. I couldn’t change Aspect; my glam was low, and I was using all of it to conceal myself from my captors. I waited for them to release me, but time passed and I realized that Geirrod’s threat had been sincere; he meant to leave me there for a week, starving and dizzy from lack of air, unless I agreed to cooperate.
It was like Thiassi all over again, except that this time I’d chosen my fate. I was exactly where I’d meant to be, but after a few days of captivity I was starting to wonder if my plan hadn’t been a little foolhardy. Of course, I needed to make Geirrod believe that he’d broken me for real; the problem was, I wasn’t sure whether I could last the course.
Days passed without reprieve. I was hungry; thirsty. Then, after seven days, Geirrod opened up the chest and grabbed me by the throat again.
‘Well? Are you ready to show yourself?’
I took a desperate gulp of air. It felt good, but I was alarmed at how weak I’d become over seven days. Much more of this and I wouldn’t have the strength to go on. And yet I clung to my hawk Aspect, knowing that if he suspected my game, I would be helpless, in his power.