Having determined that, he and Sif brought out the last of the cheese, oat bread, dried apples, and hazelnuts they’d pilfered from the supply tent in the Asgardian military camp. They kept the cheese for themselves and gave the rest to the horses. The equines munched the meager meal down eagerly and then regarded the Asgardians with a questioning and ultimately dissatisfied demeanor as though asking, “Is that all?”
“Sorry,” Heimdall said, “but yes, it is.” He and Sif climbed up onto the stallions and flew on.
Heimdall thought that by rights, slaking his thirst and putting food in his belly should have eased his anxiety for a while, but in fact it was working the other way. Knowing the very last of the provisions was gone made him feel the need to find a way off the root and into Jotunheim all the more acutely.
Each diverging root he and Sif rode by tormented him with the knowledge that they might be leaving behind the very path to one or another of the places they were seeking. Yet there was no sign to hint that any of those ways truly was the right way, and what if he and his sister abandoned the path they were on when it was the one that actually did lead to the Well of Fate or Mimir’s Well?
Perhaps, he thought, he should fly up high enough that Yggdrasil’s trunk came into view again. Inwardly, he winced at the mental punishment that would involve, but maybe he could weather it, and maybe it would help him get his bearings. He drew breath to tell Sif what he intended, and then she called to him. “What’s that?”
She was peering at the next diverging root, and he looked in the same direction. Down that path were a vague arch of color and a faint, sustained roar. He thought of the rainbows he’d sometimes seen in the mist at the foot of a waterfall and the steady rumble of the river streaming over the edge.
“A well?” Sif asked, her voice hopeful.
“Possibly,” Heimdall replied. He wanted to share her hope but had his doubts that it was warranted. “It sounds like more than a well, but everything’s huge here. Who’s to say what the word well actually signifies? But one of the three wells is Hvergelmir. The Roaring Kettle.”
“The one we don’t want.”
“Yes.”
“And whatever’s that way,” said Sif, “sounds like it deserves the name. But you said it yourself. We don’t know what the wells truly are. Maybe they all roar, and Hvergelmir is just the one that roars the loudest.”
Heimdall frowned. “You’re right. We have to check. But carefully.”
They flew down the gnarled secondary root, past others that branched off from it, and as it narrowed, while the part of it directly beneath the horses still seemed more or less flat, the curvature where it rolled out of sight at the edges became more apparent. At the same time, the Asgardians came upon enormous raw pits and gouges in the surface of the root itself. They looked somewhat like the damage Heimdall had inflicted with the hatchet, but he would have required the relative stature of a person attacking a normal-sized tree to be responsible. They heightened his sense that he and Sif might be in danger, but he still agreed with her that they needed to see what lay ahead.
Squinting, trying to spot whatever actually was to blame for the gouges, he peered ahead. There was nothing to see but the rainbow, clearer now, just as the roaring was louder, and it seemed unlikely that anything huge could escape his notice. Still wary but somewhat reassured, he flew onward, and Sif did the same.
Eventually they came to a point where the root, now no more than a long bowshot wide, twisted downward and disappeared into a huge pool – a lake, really – of foaming, churning water contained by nothing whatsoever as far as he could see, its limits set solely by the invisible play of whatever forces governed reality here. It was just as impossible to see where or how new water entered the pool, although the agitation and now-prodigious roar attested to the fact that it was rushing in from somewhere.
He and Sif glided out over the pool, and the haze dampened and cooled his face. Below him, he spied motion of a different sort than the churning of the water, and after another moment identified the source. A huge green serpent, long as a frost giant was tall, was swimming in the lake.
Was that reptile the only one? Now that he was looking straight down into the water, Heimdall spied a dozen snakes swimming to and fro, and several more coiled around the root that plunged into the depths. The enormous reptiles were gnawing on it, chewing pits in the wood that, while smaller, were otherwise much like the scars he and Sif had seen proceeding down this particular system of roots.
Plainly, this seething cauldron was indeed Hvergelmir, the Roaring Kettle, where serpents eternally attacked the substance of Yggdrasil, and he felt foolish for imagining it could have been anything else. He told himself he should have trusted his instincts. As it was, he and Sif had wasted precious time coming here and possibly put themselves in danger.
At least the source of the danger wasn’t actually present at the moment. He and his sister needed to get away before it returned. He wheeled Golden Mane, Sif and Bloodspiller followed, and they all flew back the way they’d come. Then, to his horror, he spied Nidhogg, lord and perhaps progenitor of the serpents of Hvergelmir, crawling up a branching root ahead.
Nidhogg was a dragon so huge the serpents in the Roaring Kettle seemed tadpoles by comparison, a creature big enough to have bitten and clawed the pits and gorges in the roots that Heimdall and Sif had flown over previously. He had splinters long as trees still caught between his fangs from the last such repast. His scales gleamed a dull green in the light of the stars and nebulae, but his eyes glowed crimson.
Heimdall struggled to shake off the terror Nidhogg inspired and think. He and Sif were still on the final section of the root they were traversing. If they turned around, the way led nowhere but back to the Roaring Kettle. Thus, if they retreated down it and the wyrm took the same path, as it seemed likely he would since that’s where his progeny were, they’d be trapped.
“Come on!” cried Sif. “Let’s try to get past him!”
Heimdall realized it was a good idea. Maybe the dragon’s very size could work in the Asgardians’ favor. Perhaps, if they made haste, Heimdall and Sif could streak on past the wyrm before he reached the root that terminated at the Roaring Kettle and blocked the way without the creature even noticing, just as a person wouldn’t notice mosquitos flitting in the distance.
Sif and Bloodspiller raced onward. Heimdall urged Golden Mane forward, and though he was certain the winged stallion was no more eager to go closer to Nidhogg than he was himself, the black steed too put on a burst of speed.
Unfortunately, Sif lost her gamble. Manifestly spotting the flyers, Nidhogg scuttled and lunged onto the root they were traversing. He reared and spread his bat-like wings to block the way even more thoroughly than he had done before.
Still, Heimdall thought desperately, perhaps people on flying horses could evade the dragon if they left the root system entirely. He dreaded the prospect of seeing the whole of Yggdrasil once again, but maybe both he and Sif could bear it for a little while. He turned Golden Mane to the side, and his sister followed his lead.
Nidhogg flapped his wings and raised a blast of wind that struck with stunning force. Heimdall blacked out, and when he woke, he and his mount were falling.
A gargantuan clawed extremity – not really a hand but not quite a normal reptilian appendage either – caught him and Golden Mane in its upturned palm, shifted, and caught Sif and Bloodspiller as well. Terrified, Heimdall fully expected the extremity to close and crush riders and horses together into one dead mass of pulped, bloody flesh and broken bones. Instead, it then descended nearly to the surface of the root and turned over to dump them out.
The Asgardians and their horses clambered to their feet, none apparently injured. At least not yet. Sif reached for the hilt of her broadsword, and Heimdall reflexively caught her wrist to stop her. Nidhogg was so colossal that blades were manifestly useless, and maybe, ma
ybe there was a better option than going down fighting. The fact that the dragon hadn’t killed them instantly at least suggested the possibility.
Nidhogg regarded them with his crested head tilted downward. Up close, it was impossible to take in all of him at once. A person could focus on an immense talon-bearing forefoot, a leathery wing, the burning red eyes, but not all of them. Which reinforced Heimdall’s grim certainty that the dragon was simply too gigantic for swords and fighting prowess to be of any use.
“Who–” Nidhogg began. His snarl of a voice was so loud that Heimdall and Sif clapped their hands over their ears, and the winged horses cringed.
The wyrm snorted and shrank, for some reason changing color from deep green to a greenish-yellow as he did so. Afterward, the wedge-shaped head at the end of the long serpentine neck still loomed high over the Asgardians, but facing Nidhogg wasn’t like standing at the foot of a mountain any more. A watchtower, perhaps.
“I have heard,” Nidhogg said, the volume now bearable, “of warriors slaying dragons of this runty size. Don’t be deceived. I am as strong as I was before. Try me if you doubt it.”
Heimdall didn’t. His heart pounding, still profoundly frightened but trying to appear calm – his instincts told him that acting like prey might provoke an immediate and fatal attack – he said, “That won’t be necessary.”
The scraps of wood had shrunk with the jaws that held them. Nidhogg’s forked tongue licked one loose from between two fangs, and he swallowed it. “Who are you?” He sniffed. “Vanir, by the smell of you.”
Sif stepped up beside Heimdall, trying also to appear calm and composed. “That’s right,” she said, her voice steady. “I’m Sif, and this is my brother Heimdall. We’re warriors in service to Odin, and we ask a favor.”
“A favor?” Nidhogg asked, amusement in his voice.
“Please, point us to the Well of Fate,” said Sif, “and Mimir’s Well while you’re at it.”
“Why, tiny Asgardian, would I do any such thing?”
“Because,” Heimdall said, “as Sif told you, we serve Odin. We’re on a mission for him.” It was, he thought, more or less true even if the sleeping god didn’t know it. “And if you help us, the All-Father will owe you a favor in return.”
“All-Father, you say. He’s not my father, and there’s nothing I need from him, ruling over his speck of a kingdom high up in the Tree. No, you two have strayed where you don’t belong, and now you must pay the price. I’ve not tasted Vanir in a long time.”
“Why bother tasting it at all?” Heimdall asked. “Isn’t it the wood of Yggdrasil that sustains you?”
“Yes,” the dragon said, “but over time, it grows monotonous. Every few centuries, I like a change.”
At the periphery of Heimdall’s vision, Sif was easing her hand toward her sword again. He shot her a warning glance, and she forbore with a scowl.
“But there’s so little of us,” he called up to Nidhogg, “it scarce seems worth your while. We’ll make a mouthful at most.”
The dragon cocked his head and considered his prisoners anew. “No,” he said at length, “now that I’ve shrunk, two Asgardians and two Valkyrie horses should make a decent snack. Maybe I’ll even save a little for my spawn back in the Kettle to fight over. They like a change too.”
Heimdall could feel he was sweating and struggled again to appear unconcerned. “It still seems a waste,” he said. “After all, curiosity is a kind of hunger, too. Don’t you want to hear what Sif and I are doing here?”
“Not particularly,” Nidhogg said. “The doings of the Nine Worlds are no concern of mine.”
“Well…” Heimdall strained to think of something else that might divert the wyrm from his sanguinary intent. “You spoke of the monotony of your diet. Living here as you have for ages, nothing ever changing, you must suffer other kinds of boredom, too, boredom that a mouthful or two of Vanir flesh and horsemeat will only relieve for a moment. Why not let me entertain you?”
Nidhogg grunted. “How could a flea like you possibly do that?”
How indeed, when neither he nor Sif were any sort of skald? Heimdall blurted out the first thing that popped into his mind. “Do you know hnefatafl?”
Hnefatafl was a board game in which the two players controlled differing numbers of pieces and had opposing objectives. The smaller side represented a defending army, all but one of the pieces were warriors seeking to protect their king as he made his way to safety at the edge of the board. The larger side was the warriors of the attacking army striving to capture the fleeing monarch.
Now that it was too late to take back the suggestion in any case, Heimdall thought hnefatafl might actually be a sound idea. He was good at it and generally won. Just as importantly, hnefatafl was an ancient game played in several of the Nine Worlds, which increased the likelihood that Nidhogg knew it and conceivably even had an interest.
Or perhaps it wasn’t such a shrewd suggestion. “I have lived since the beginning of all things,” Nidhogg said. “My intellect and experience are immeasurably greater than yours. How could your footling efforts provide a challenge?”
“They might,” Heimdall said, “if the stakes inspire me to do my very best.”
“The stakes?” the dragon rumbled.
“If I win, you give us the directions we need and let us go our way in peace.”
“And if I win, I eat you, your sister, and the horses?”
“If you insist.”
Nidhogg laughed. “I do. Hnefatafl it is, then. Give me a moment, and I’ll produce what we need.” The scarlet eyes narrowed, and he whispered a sibilant incantation.
Sif stepped closer to her brother. “Are you certain this is a wise idea?”
“No,” he answered. “But it’s a better idea than being chewed to bits and dead inside Nidhogg’s belly. Which is what and where we would otherwise be already.”
“There is that,” his sister said. “Good luck, then.”
The patch of root between the Asgardians and the dragon cracked and churned as Nidhogg’s sorcery took hold of it. Playing pieces rose, took shape, and separated themselves from the underlying wood, those of the attacking army turning green and those of the defending force darkening to black. When fully formed, they were about half as tall as Heimdall, big enough for Nidhogg to pick up and move without fumbling yet small enough for his opponent to shift if he walked out on the game board.
Once Nidhogg finished making the pieces, said game board shaped itself beneath them, eleven squares by eleven squares. The defending king stood at the center surrounded by his twelve warriors. The twenty-four attacking warriors stood at the edges of the board, six to a side.
“You are trying to save the king,” Nidhogg said.
Heimdall wasn’t surprised. Though he generally subsisted on a diet of wood, the wyrm seemed a predator through and through. It made sense that he preferred the aggressor role.
The Asgardian, however, didn’t mind being the defender with a smaller number of pieces to control. The king was more difficult to capture than a warrior, and that combined with the differing goals of the two sides made hnefatafl an even contest.
Heimdall walked to the center of the board and, with Nidhogg towering over him, shifted a warrior in what was his favorite opening. The dragon immediately picked up a green game piece between two talons and set it down beside the black one, establishing half of the sandwiching that would remove it from the board, and the game was on.
After the first few moves, play slowed considerably as complexities presented themselves and man and dragon took time to ponder their options and consider what their opponents might be up to. It appeared to Heimdall that Nidhogg was following the common strategy of forming a ring around the defending pieces. Once it was in place, the dragon would tighten the circle, capturing warriors and finally the king.
Happily, an attacking player coul
dn’t form such a blockade all at once, only gradually, a move at a time. That gave the defender the chance to make sure there were gaps in it and to slide warriors all the way to the peripheries of the board, where they helped to establish the king’s escape route and threatened enemy pieces from the rear.
Heimdall pursued such a defense and for a time felt he was holding his own. Then Nidhogg laughed a hissing laugh, shifted a piece, and the Asgardian saw the move had created a fork. Two of his warriors were under threat, and his next move could only save one of them. He considered and then shifted the one he thought it more important to preserve. The dragon moved his piece again, catching Heimdall’s doomed warrior between that token and one already in juxtaposition with it, and so drew first blood.
Heimdall thought he’d been playing carefully hitherto, but he took an even longer time studying the board before he made his next move. That forking move had seemed to come out of nowhere, and now, to his dismay, he belatedly recognized a deeper level to the positioning of Nidhogg’s pieces. What had seemed a fairly standard arrangement was in reality something subtler, a design containing several traps the dragon was waiting to spring.
Heimdall’s confidence – to the extent that he’d had any – shaken, the Asgardian resolved that he wouldn’t fall into any more traps, and yet, a few moves later, it happened anyway, and he lost another of his warriors. He then captured the attacking piece in its turn, but with fewer warriors at his disposal it was a losing strategy to trade man for man, especially as he had as yet made little progress establishing a safe path for his king to exit the board.
It was coming home to him that when claiming to be the superior player, the wyrm had spoken only the truth, and for a moment he hated himself for imagining he could outthink and outplay an intellect that had existed since the beginning of time. The knowledge that it was the only ploy that had occurred to him, and that it had at least extended his life and Sif’s by a few more minutes, was scant comfort.
The Head of Mimir Page 16
