“Can you see beyond?” asked Shea.
“A little. Beyond the trolls, a ledge sits over a pile of molten slag at the entrance of the hall where the flaming swords are forged, and then — and then” — his forehead contracted, his lips moved a trifle — “a giant sits by the pool of slag. No more can I see.”
Heimdall relapsed into gloomy silence. Shea felt considerable respect and some liking for him, but it is hard to be friendly with a god, even in a prison cell. Thjalfi’s cheerful human warmth was missing.
Stegg re-entered the cell hall. One of the prisoners called out: “Good Stegg, a little water, please; I die of thirst.”
Stegg turned his head a rifle. “Dinner time soon, slave.” The prisoner gave a yell of anger and shouted abuse at the troll, who continued down to his alcove in the most perfect indifference. Here he hoisted himself into a broken-down stool, dropped his chin on his chest, and apparently went to sleep.
“Nice guy,” said Shea.
The prisoner across the way came to the front of his cell and shrieked, “Yngvi is a louse!” again.
“The troll is not asleep,” said Heimdall. “I can hear his thoughts, for he is of a race that can hardly think at all without moving the lips. But I cannot make them out. Harald, you see a thing that is uncommon; namely, one of the Æsir confessing he is beaten. But there is this to be said: if we are held here it will be the worst of days for gods and men.”
“Why would that be?”
“So near is the balance of strength, gods against giants, that the issue of what will happen at the Time hangs by a thread. If we come late to the field we shall surely lose; the giants will hold the issues against our mustering. And I am here— here in this cell — with my gift of eyesight that can see them in time to warn. I am here, and the Gjallarhorn, the roaring trumpet that would call gods and heroes to the field, is at Sverre’s house.”
Shea asked: “Why don’t the Æsir attack the giants before the giants are ready, if they know there’s going to be a war anyway?”
Heimdalj stared at him. “You know not the Law of the Nine Worlds, Harald. We Æsir cannot attack the giants all together before the Time. Men and gods live by law; else they would be but giants.”
He began to pace back and forth with rapid steps, his forehead set in a frown. Shea noted that even at this moment the Sleepless One was careful to place one foot before the other to best display the litheness of his walk.
“Surely they’ll miss you,” said Shea. “Can’t they set other guards to watch the giants get together, or” — he finished lamely at the glint in Heimdall’s eye — “something?”
“A mortal’s thoughts! Aye!” Heimdall gave a short bark of bitter laughter. “Set other guards, here and there! Listen, Turnip Harald; Harald the fool. Of all us Æsir, Frey is the best, the only one who can stand before Surt with weapons in hand. Yet the worlds are so made, and we cannot change it, that one race Frey fears. Against the frost giants he has no power. Only I, I and my sword Head, can deal with them; and if I am not there to lead my band against the frost giants, we shall live to something less than a ripe old age thereafter.”
“I’m sorry — sir,” said Shea.
“Aye. No matter. Come, let us play the game of questions. Few and ill are the thoughts that rise from brooding.”
* * *
For hours they plied each other with queries about their respective worlds. In that ominous place, time could be measured only by meals and the periodic shrieks of “Yngvi is a louse!” About the eighth of these cries, Stegg came out of his somnolent state, went out, and returned with a pile of bowls. These he set in front of the cells. Each bowl had a spoon; one was evidently expected to do one’s eating through the bars. As the troll put the bowls in front of Shea’s cell, he remarked loftily: “King see subjects eat.”
The mess he put in them consisted of some kind of porridge with small lumps of fish in it, sour to the taste. Shea did not blame his fellow prisoners when they broke into loud complaints about the quality and quantity of the food. Stegg paid not the slightest attention, relapsing into his chair till they had finished, when he gathered up the bowls and carried them out.
The next time the door opened, it was not Stegg but another troll. In the flickering torchlight this one was, if possible, less handsome than his predecessor. His face was built around a nose of such astonishing proportions that it projected a good eighteen inches, and he moved with a quick, catlike stride. The prisoners, who had been fairly noisy while Stegg was in charge, now fell silent.
The new jailer stepped quickly to Shea’s cell. “You new arrivals?” he snapped. “I am Snögg. You be good, nothing hurt you. You be bad, zzzp.” He made a motion with his finger to indicate the cutting of a throat, and turning his back on them, paced down the row of cells, peering suspiciously into each.
Shea had never in his life slept on a stone floor. So he was surprised, an indefinite time later, to awaken and discover that he had done it for the first time, with the result of being stiff.
He got up, stretching. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked Heimdall.
“I do not know that. Our fellow prisoner, who dislikes someone called Yngvi, ceased his shouting some time since.”
The long-nosed jailer was still pacing. Still muzzy with sleep, Shea could not remember his name, and called out:
“Hey, you with the nose! How long before break —”
The troll had turned on him, shrieking: “What you call me? You stinking worm! I — zzzp!” He ran down to the alcove, face distorted with fury, and returned with a bucket of water which he sloshed into Shea’s surprised face. “You son of unwed parents!” raged he. “I roast you with slow fire! I am Snögg. I am master! You use right name.”
Heimdall was laughing silently at the back of the cell.
Shea murmured: “That’s one way of getting a bath at all events. I guess our friend Snögg is sensitive about his nose.
“That is not un-evident,” said Heimdall. “Hai! How many troubles the children of men would save themselves, could they but have the skill of the gods for reading the thought that lies behind the lips. Half of all they suffer, I would wager.”
“Speaking of wagers, Sleepless One,” said Shea, “I see how we can run a race to pass the time.”
“This cage is somewhat less than spacious,” objected Heimdall. “What are you doing? It is to be trusted that you do not mean an eating race with those cockroaches.”
“No. I’m going to race them. Here’s yours. You can tell him by his broken feeler.”
“The steed is not of the breed,” observed Heimdall, taking the insect. “Still, I will name him Gold Top, after my horse. What will you call yours, and how shall we race them?”
Shea said: “I shall call mine Man o’ War after a famous horse in our world.” He smoothed down the dust on the floor, and drew a circle in it with his finger. “Now,” he explained, let us release our racers in The centre of the circle, and the one whose roach crossed the rim first shall win.”
“A good sport. What shall the wager be? A crown?”
“Seeing that neither of us has any money at all,” said Shea, why don’t we shoot the works and make it fifty crowns?”
“Five hundred if you wish.”
Man o’ War won the first race. Snögg, hearing the activity in the cell, hustled over. “What you do?” he demanded. Shea explained. “Oh,” sniffed the troll. “All right, you do. Not too noisy, though. I stop if you do.” He stalked away, but was soon back again to watch the sport. Gold Top won the second race — Man o’ War the third and fourth. Shea, glancing up, suppressed an impulse to tweak the sesquipedalian nose that the troll had thrust through the bars.
By and by Snögg went out and was replaced by Stegg, who did not even notice the cockroach racing. As he hoisted himself into his chair, Shea asked whether he could get them some sort of small box or basket.
“Why you want?” asked Stegg.
Shea explained he wanted it to keep the
cockroaches in.
Stegg raised his eyebrows. “I too big for this things,” he said loftily and refused to answer another word.
So they had to let the racers go, rather than hold them in their hands all day. But Shea saved a little of his breakfast and later, by using it as bait, they captured two more cockroaches.
This time, after a few victories for Shea, Heimdall’s roach began to win consistently. By the time the man across the passage had yelled “Yngvi is a louse!” four times Shea found himself Heimdall’s debtor to the extent of something like thirty million crowns. It made him suspicious. He watched the golden god narrowly during the next race, then burst out:
Say, that’s not fair! You’re fixing my cockroach with your glittering eye and slowing him up!”
“What, mortal! Dare you accuse one of the Æsir?”
“You’re damn right, I dare! If you’re going to use your special powers, I won’t play.”
A smile slowly spread across Heimdall’s face. “Young Harald, you do not lack for boldness, and I have said before that you show glimmerings of wit. In truth, I have slowed up your steed; it is not meet that one of the Æsir should be beaten at aught by a mortal. But come, let that one go, and we will begin again with new mounts, for I fear that animal of yours will never again be the same.”
It was not difficult to catch more roaches. “Once more I shall name mine Gold Top, after my horse,” said Heimdall.
“It is a name of good luck. Did you have no favourite horse?”
“No, but I had a car, a four-wheeled chariot, it was called —” began Shea, and then stopped. What was the name of that car? He tried to reproduce the syllables — nyrose, no — neeloase, no, not that either — neroses, nerosis — something clicked into place in his brain, a series of somethings, like the fragments of a jigsaw puzzle.
“Heimdall!” he cried suddenly, “I believe I know how we can get out of here!”
“That will be the best of news,” said the Sleepless One, doubtfully, “if the deed be equal to the thought. But I have looked, now, deeply into this place, and I do not see how it may be done without outside aid. Nor shall we have help from any giant with the Time so near.”
“Whose side will the trolls be on?”
“It is thought that the trolls will be neuter. Yet strange it would be if we could beguile one of these surly ones to help us.”
“Nevertheless, something you said a little while back gives me an idea. You remember? Something about the skill of the gods at reading the thought that lies behind the lips?”
“Aye.”
“I am — I was — of a profession whose business it is to learn people’s thoughts by questioning them, and by studying what they think today, predict what they will think tomorrow in other circumstances. Even to provoke them to thinking certain things.”
“It could be. It is an unusual art, mortal, and a great skill, but it could be. What then?”
“Well, then, this Stegg, I don’t think we can get far with him, I’ve seen his type before. He’s a — a — a something I can’t remember, but he lives in a world of his own imaginings, where he’s a king and we’re all his slaves. I remember, now— a paranoiac. You can’t establish contact with a mind like that.”
Most justly and truly reasoned, Harald. From what I am able to catch of his thought this is no more than the truth.”
“But Snögg is something else. We can do something with him.”
“Much though I regret to say it, you do not drown me in an ocean of hope. Snögg is even more hostile than his unattractive brother.”
Shea grinned. At last he was in a position to make use of his specialized knowledge. “That’s what one would think. But I have studied many like him. The only thing that’s wrong with Snögg is that he has a . . . a feeling of inferiority — a complex we call it — about that nose of his. If somebody could convince him he’s handsome —”
“Snögg handsome! Ho, ho! That is a jest for Loki’s tongue.”
“Sssh! Please, Lord Heimdall. As I say, the thing he wants most is probably good looks. If we could . . . if we could pretend to work some sort of spell on his nose, tell him it has shrunk and get the other prisoners to corroborate —”
A plan of wit! It is now to be seen that you have been associating with Uncle Fox. Yet do not sell your bearskin till you have caught the animal. If you can get Snögg sufficiently friendly to propose your plan, then will it be seen whether confinement has really sharpened your wits or only addled them. But, youngling, what is to prevent Snögg feeling his nose and discovering the beguilement for himself?”
“Oh, we don’t have to guarantee to take it all off. He’d be grateful enough for a couple of inches.”
Chapter Eight
WHEN SNÖGG CAME on duty at nightfall, he found the dungeon as usual, except that Shea’s and Heimdall’s cell was noisy with shouts of encouragement to their entries in the great cockroach derby. He went over to the cell to make sure that nothing outside the rules of the prison was going on.
Shea met his suspicious glower with a grin. “Hi, there, friend Snögg! Yesterday I owed Heindall thirty million crowns, but today my luck has turned and it’s down to twenty-three million.”
“What do you mean?” snapped the troll.
Shea explained, and went on: “Why don’t you get in the game? We’ll catch a roach for you. It must be pretty dull, with nothing w do all night but listen to the prisoners snore.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Snögg, then turned abruptly suspicious again. “You make trick to let other prisoner escape, I — zzzzp!” He motioned across his throat again. “Lord Surt, he say.”
“No, nothing like that. You can make your inspection any time. Sssh! There’s one now.
“One what?” asked Snögg, a little of the hostility leaving his voice. Shea was creeping towards the wall of his cell. He pounced like a cat and came up with another cockroach in his hand. “What’ll his name be?” he asked Snögg.
Snögg thought, his little troll brain trying to grasp the paradox of a friendly prisoner, his eyes moving suspiciously. “I call him Fiörm, after river. That run fast,” he said at last.
“That where you are from?”
“Aye.”
Heimdall spoke up. “It is said, friend Snögg, that Fiörm has the finest fish in all the nine worlds, and I believe it, for I have seen them.”
The troll looked almost pleased. “True word. Me fish there, early morning. Ho, ho! Me wade — snap! Up come trout. Bite him, flop, flop in face. Me remember big one, chase into shallow.”
Shea said: You and Öku-Thor ought to get together. Fjörm may have the best fish, but he has the biggest fish story in the nine worlds.”
Snögg actually emitted a snicker. “Me know that story. Thor no fisher. He use hook and line. Only trolls know how to fish fair. We use hands, like this.” He bent over the floor, his face fixed in intense concentration then made a sudden sweeping motion, quick as a rattlesnake’s lunge. “Ah!” He cried. “Fish! love him! Come, we race.”
The three cockroaches were tossed into the centre of the circle and scuttled away. Snögg’s Fjörm was the first to cross the line to the troll’s unconcealed delight.
They ran race after race, with halts when one of the roaches escaped and another had to be caught. Snögg’s entry showed a tendency to win altogether at variance with the law of probability. The troll did not notice and would hardly have grasped the fact that Heimdall was using his piercing glance on his own and Shea’s roaches and slowing them up, though Snögg was not allowed to win often enough to rouse his sleeping suspicions. By the time Stegg relieved him in the morning he was over twenty million crowns ahead. Shea stretched out on the floor to sleep with the consciousness of a job well done.
When he awoke, just before Snögg came on duty the next night, he found Heimdall impatient and uneasy, complaining of the delay while Surt’s messenger was riding to demand the sword Head as ransom. Yet it speedily became obvious that the Snögg campaign coul
d not be hurried.
“Don’t you ever get homesick for your river Fjörm?” asked Shea, when the troll had joined them.
“Aye,” replied Snögg. “Often. Like ’um fish.”
“Think you’ll be going back?”
“Will not be soon.”
“Why not?”
Snögg squirmed a little. “Lord Surt him hard master.”
“Oh, he’d let you go. Is that the only reason?”
“N-no. Me like troll girl Elvagevu. Haro! Here, what I do, talk privacy life with prisoner? Stop it. We race.”
Shea recognized this as a good place to stop his questioning, but when Snögg was relieved, he remarked to Heimdall: That’s a rich bit of luck. I can’t imagine being in love with a female troll, but he evidently is —”
“Man from another world, you observe well. His thoughts were near enough his lips for me to read. This troll-wife, Elvagevu, has refused him because of the size of his nose.”
“Ah! Then we really have something. Now, tonight —”
* * *
When the cockroach races began that night, Heimdall reversed the usual process sufficiently to allow Snögg to lose several races in succession. The long winning streak he later developed was accordingly appreciated, and it was while Snögg was chucking over his victories, snapping his finger joints and bouncing in delight that Shea insinuated softly: “Friend Snögg, you have been good to us. Now, if there’s something we could do for you, we’d be glad to do it. For instance, we might be able to remove the obstacle that prevents your return to Elvagevu.”
Snögg jumped and glared suspiciously. “Not possible,” he said thickly.
Heimdall looked at the ceiling. “Great wonders have been accomplished by prisoners,” he said, “when there is held out to them the hope of release.”
“Lord Surt him very bad man when angry,” Snögg countered, his eyes moving restlessly.
The Incompleat Enchanter Page 10
