by E. G. Foley
When they stepped outside, all of them squinting in the sunlight, Jake stood aside, waving the scientists past. “Move along, gentlemen! Come now, careful on the rocks. Mind your footing. There’s the path you want.” He pointed toward the woods. “That will take you back to campus. Just head down the mountain. You’ll find your way.”
From the corner of his eye, Jake noticed a familiar lion tail twitching impatiently from behind a nearby boulder. Thankfully, the rest of the Gryphon remained hidden.
Still, they could not get rid of the geniuses fast enough for him. If the scientists caught a glimpse of Red, then Jake feared he might have to give them a double dose of the Oubliette spell—and who could say what other information he might accidentally wipe from their minds?
He had no desire to harm them. He just wanted to be left alone. Standing near the giant’s extinguished campfire, he continued to shoo them away. “Off you go! That’s right, enjoy your nature walk. Head that way, and with any luck, you’ll be back at the banquet hall in time for supper.”
“Nature walk,” they echoed as the whole group shuffled off toward the trailhead.
“Back for supper…”
“Beautiful woods, trees…”
“Lovely day…”
“Pleasant…”
At last, they disappeared into the pine forest, and Jake exchanged a dire glance with Archie.
Both boys let out huge sighs of relief.
Of course, there was still a giant to deal with in the cave, but at least Jake no longer had to worry about being dissected.
With the scientists gone, Red bounded out from behind the boulder and landed in front of him with a low growl of disapproval. He pecked the ground in front of Jake’s feet in reproach. “I know, boy. Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he assured his irritated Gryphon.
“What’s wrong with him?” Archie asked.
“He’s just being overprotective, as usual. He’s got his beak in a twist that I ordered him to stay out of the fight when he knew I was in danger. But you still obeyed me like a good boy!” Jake patted the Gryphon’s scarlet head—which only insulted the beast’s dignity more.
Red ruffled his feathers indignantly and turned away with a snuffle.
“So what do we do now?” Archie asked.
“Interrogate the prisoner. We’ve got to assume he’s working with Loki. Remember, Miss Langesund told us Loki’s goal was to build an army of giants. Looks like he’s already started. I’m going to try to get some details out of him about whatever Loki’s planning.”
Archie frowned. “I’m not sure he’ll know much. He didn’t seem very bright.”
“Leave it to me,” Jake replied with sturdy confidence, pivoting toward the cave. But then he paused. “Say, do you have your collapsible mess-kit with you?”
“Always.” Archie dug into his trusty tool-bag and pulled out a round piece of metal gear. “What do you need? Fork, spoon, knife? Cup, saucer?”
“As big a pot as you can make it.”
“No problem.” Archie flipped away the metal clamp, twisted the tin lid until it came free, unfolded one piece then another, and after a few more neat, efficient twists and pops, handed Jake a serviceable pot for boiling water or cooking beans over a campfire.
“Thanks.” Jake strode over and filled the pot with cold water from the stream, then carried it back into the cave. “This should wake him up.”
Archie followed. “Good idea!”
“Why do they call it the Oubliette spell, anyway?” Jake asked his cousin as he carried the water carefully into the black, uneven tunnel.
“Oubliette comes from the French word ‘oublier’ meaning ‘to forget,’” Archie said absently as they groped their way through the darkness. “In medieval times, the oubliette was the worst, deepest, nastiest, underground cell in a castle dungeon. Just a hole, really, where they used to throw prisoners into solitary confinement, then ‘forget’ about them. Leave ’em to rot, I guess.”
“Well, that’s cheerful,” Jake muttered.
“Rather!” Archie agreed. “The important thing is, the Oubliette spell works. I’ve seen Aunt Ramona use it loads of times to protect the secrecy of the Order.”
“Good. Let’s just hope our absentminded professors don’t get lost on their way back to campus,” Jake said dryly.
Archie chuckled. “With all the police and search parties out looking for them, somebody’s sure to find them sooner or later.”
Red caught up to the boys, landing between them with a pounce. His golden eyes gleamed in the darkness as he prowled along with them through the dark tunnel.
Before long, they reached the wide, torch-lit cavern, where their oversized captive still snoozed.
Jake carried the pot of water closer. “Stand back, Arch. Let’s see what this big oaf has to say for himself, shall we?”
Archie nodded, keeping his distance while Red looked on.
“Brace yourselves,” Jake warned. Then he threw the pot of cold water in the sleeping giant’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Big Questions
The giant spluttered as he awoke, blinking away the water that ran down his broad cheeks in dusty rivulets.
His deep-set eyes flew open, then his bushy brows knitted together in wrath. A great, rumbling roar started low in his chest, growing louder as it made its way up his throat to burst out of his mouth: “Arrrr!”
Jake jumped back as the giant began thrashing.
“Let me go!”
“Not very fun being held captive, is it?” Archie yelled, but Jake bent down and seized the big sharpened stick that Professor Langesund had been using as a spear.
He threatened the giant’s eyeball with it. “Explain yourself, monster, or I’ll blind ye!”
“Monster?” the giant asked abruptly, pausing in his rage. “Well, I hardly think I deserved that.”
The relatively mild response threw Jake off his stride, but he refused to ease up on the brute. “Are you alone?” he demanded in his meanest voice.
The giant stared at him as if he were an idiot. “You’re here.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Jake said impatiently. “Are you here with friends? Are there other giants in the area?”
“Oh—no.” The giant quit struggling against the many loops of rope holding him down and sighed. “Just me.”
“Where did you come from?” he demanded.
The giant looked at him like he was daft. “Uh, Jugenheim. Where else?”
“Yoo-gan-hime?” Jake echoed.
“That’s the old Norse name for Giant Land,” Archie discreetly informed him. “It starts with J, but you don’t pronounce it—like Johann Sebastian Bach.”
“How long have you been here?” Jake continued, turning back to the giant.
“Got ’ere yesterday,” he said.
Jake eyed his massive prisoner in suspicion. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a name?”
“Of course I’ve got a name! Who hasn’t got a name?”
“All right, then. I’m Jake. That’s Archie. What do we call you?”
“Snorri. Snorri the Shepherd. Because I keep sheep back home.”
“I figured that,” Jake muttered.
“They’re probably starving right now, poor little things,” Snorri added.
Jake furrowed his brow. This giant was looking less and less frightening by the moment. “What are you doing in Norway?”
“What? Norway?” he said in alarm. “I thought I was in Midgarth!”
“Norway is a part of Midgarth,” Archie explained in a longsuffering tone.
“Midgarth?” Jake asked.
“The old Viking name for earth. The world of humans.”
Jake snorted and turned back to the giant. “Very well, so what are you doing here in Midgarth?” he repeated impatiently.
“I don’t know! I never meant to come here!” Snorri the Shepherd burst out defensively. “It was an accident.”
“An accident?” Jake echoed. “Right
.”
“It’s true!” The giant heaved a sigh, then, sounding a little disgusted with himself, he explained: “I accidentally made a hole in the crust of the earth up in Jugenheim, then I fell through it. Go on, laugh! Laugh all you like! Everyone does. I’m used to it,” he said glumly. “That sort of thing always happens to me. I’m a loser.”
Jake and Archie exchanged a puzzled glance. Snorri’s answers were nothing like the fearsome words the boys had been expecting. Was this an act? Some sort of sad sack routine to make them lower their guard?
Jake wasn’t sure what to believe, but he pressed on, determined to get his interrogation back on track. “Why did you kidnap all those scientists?”
The giant looked a bit nervous at this question.
“Explain yourself!” Archie chimed in angrily. “You had no right to do that, you know! You broke my invention that I’ve been working on all year! You’re lucky I didn’t have my real aether gun with me or you’d be sorry!”
“But I am sorry,” the giant said in dismay. He lowered his head. “I didn’t mean any harm, really.” He hesitated. “The bird made me do it.”
“What?”
“The little talking crow,” Snorri said.
They stared at him.
“Talking crow?” Jake asked.
“Aye, he flew right down onto the log beside my campfire just when I was feeling awfully homesick. We got to talking, and he was very kind when I told him all that had happened to me—about the hole and all, I mean, and Princess Kaia.”
“Who’s that?” Jake asked warily.
The giant stared at him like he was a complete ignoramus. Then he scoffed. “Only the most beautiful lady in all the Nine Worlds!”
Jake and Archie exchanged a dubious glance.
“The crow said he could help me win Princess Kaia’s hand in marriage. He said he could brew up a potion to make me the smartest giant that ever was! That’s why I snatched those men, and this little runt, too.”
“Excuse me!” Archie retorted.
“How’s a crow going to stir anything, anyway? He hasn’t got any hands,” Jake pointed out.
“With his beak—probably,” Snorri shot back, though it was clear he, too, had been troubled by this question.
“Please, go on,” Jake urged, his suspicions already taking shape.
“The bird said if I drank the potion then I’d become smart and charming and turn into a fascinating fellow. Then Kaia would fall in love with me and we could be happy-ever-after.” The big, fierce lug let out a lovelorn sigh, much to Jake’s bemusement. “But it was all just a dream, I suppose.”
“You can’t be serious!” Archie burst out. “You caused all this havoc over a girl?”
Jake couldn’t hide his amusement, either. “A girl giant,” he drawled with a wry glance at his cousin.
“I can’t help it. She’s byooootiful and I love her!” Snorri cried. “The crow said we needed to catch some geniuses so we could crush their brains into powder for the potion—”
Archie stopped laughing abruptly. “What? You were going to turn my brain into a powder? My brain?”
“Well, I couldn’t go back to Jugenheim being the same old loser as I was when I left. Everyone back home thinks I’m just a joke,” Snorri confessed. “That bird said he could make me clever—clever enough to win the princess and even become the next king of Giant Land! Can you imagine? Me? King Snorri!” Then he sighed again. “Well, I guess all that’s over now. A stupid dream. No hope for a new life. Same old, boring, dummy me.”
Jake had to admit he felt a bit sorry for him. But he furrowed his brow as he mulled the giant’s tale. “This crow promised to make you king of Jugenheim?”
“That’s right,” Snorri said.
“What did he want in exchange? There had to be a catch.”
“Well, now that you mention it…” Snorri glanced around the cave uneasily, as though he expected the bird to return at any moment. “He said he might need to ask me for a favor in the future sometime, when I was king. He said I’d owe him one.”
“I see.” Jake narrowed his eyes, certain of it now. Loki. “Tell us more about this bird. What did he look like, exactly?”
Snorri half-shrugged against the vine-ropes still binding him. “Just a little black crow with shiny wings like polished coal, and he had…yes, a little dappling of odd white feathers on his cheek.”
Jake shook his head. Just as I suspected. “Snorri, you were deceived,” he said grimly. “That crow was Loki in disguise.”
“What?” Snorri started to bolt upward, but the ropes held him down. He looked so appalled that Jake was immediately convinced that the giant had had no idea who he had been dealing with. “Loki? But y-you must be wrong! That would be terrible!”
“I know. If he would’ve made you king, you soon would’ve found yourself having to answer to him.”
“Like a puppet ruler,” Archie chimed in, nodding sagely.
“But I don’t want to be a puppet! I’m just an ordinary shepherd!” The giant stared at the boys in dread. “I hope you’re wrong. I’d get in so much trouble if this was true! I’m not even supposed to be here, not even by accident! Giants aren’t allowed in Midgarth! That’s why the gods made a seal between the different worlds.” Then Snorri gasped as a new thought struck him. “Oh, please don’t tell me Thor found out I broke the earth! If Odin knows, too, then I’m doomed!”
“Never mind them. Loki’s the one you have to worry about, that trickster,” Jake growled. “He’s been all over this place causing trouble.”
“You should see what he did to our tutor and our governess!” Archie agreed with a nod.
Snorri’s eyes widened.
As Jake considered the situation, folding his arms over his chest and tapping his fingers on his opposite biceps, he brooded on it. Something had to be done.
It seemed that he and Archie had successfully disrupted Loki’s plan to trick Snorri into becoming his puppet ruler over the giants.
But if this seal between the worlds was broken, then the trickster god might still manage to slip into Jugenheim and find some other giant to work with.
Even without Snorri, Loki might still find a way to amass his army of giants, just like in the ancient Viking prophecy.
Jake knew he couldn’t let that happen.
Considering that his sole purpose in life was to follow in his murdered parents’ footsteps and become one day a Lightrider like them—sworn to helping magical creatures in distress—he had to do something.
Archie, meanwhile, was shaking his head. “You know, Snorri, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. You mustn’t be so gullible.”
“He’s right,” Jake agreed. “We’re all going to have to be on our toes, because I’m fairly sure that Loki is the one behind all this…”
Then Snorri listened, motionless with dread, while Jake told him about the Viking prophecy that Miss Langesund had revealed, how Loki would try to marshal up an army of giants to war against Odin and Thor.
“You mean that devil nearly tricked me into causing the end of the world?” Snorri whispered hoarsely when Jake had concluded with the Battle of Ragnarok.
“Afraid so.”
Snorri was so upset that he lifted his head just enough to bang it on the rocky ground a few times. “Oh, how could I be so stupid? Dumb, dumb, oaf!”
“Get a hold of yourself!” Archie chided.
“You don’t understand, Master Archie!” the giant cried. “Nobody back home knows anything about this terrible prophecy! The gods must’ve kept it from us to try to prevent it from coming true. Now everyone’s in danger—even my sweet Kaia and her father, King Olaf!”
Jake weighed their options, staring at their captive. “Snorri, if we set you free, you must promise to go back to Jugenheim at once and warn your people what Loki is scheming. The giant folk will have to be on their guard to avoid his trickery; Loki is crafty. He can make himself look like anyone.”
“That’s j
ust it,” Snorri said miserably. “They’ll never listen to me! All they do is laugh at me. That’s why I wanted so much to be smart. Because Prince Gorm makes fun of me and everyone thinks I’m a joke!”
Jake frowned as pity for the big lug pulled upon his heartstrings. Hesitating only for a second, he made his decision. “Well, then. If that’s how it is, there’s only one solution. We’ll go with you.”
“What?” Archie cried.
“We’ll escort him home to Giant Land and vouch for him in front of the giant king, that the threat from Loki is real.”
“Oh, would you, really? Thank you, thank you, Master Jake! That will certainly help, but…on second thought, I’m afraid it won’t fix our Loki problem for long,” Snorri said with a ponderous frown.
“Why is that?”
“Because Princess Kaia is supposed to marry Prince Gorm. It’s not official yet, but it’s what her father wants. King Olaf says Prince Gorm is everything a giant should be. Loud, bossy, rough. And a great warrior,” Snorri added with a glum look. “Just a big bully if you ask me—but he’s Mr. Popular.”
“Sounds charming,” Archie mumbled. Being a smallish lad himself, he had plenty of experience with bullies, at least until Jake had come along.
“If you could hear the way Gorm talks to the other warriors, always wanting more—more gold, more lands, more power—well, I think he’s just the sort of giant who’d be glad to make a deal with Loki. Knowing Gorm,” Snorri added, “he’d probably enjoy fighting the Battle of Ragnarok.”
“Then we’d better make sure he doesn’t inherit the throne.” Jake paused as his plan became clear. “You must have it, Snorri. You must marry Princess Kaia and be the next king of the giants, just as you had hoped. After all that’s happened, I trust you’ve learned your lesson that Loki can’t be trusted. If you were to become the next king of Jugenheim, I feel certain that you would know better than anyone to stay on the lookout for Loki’s tricks from now on. If you were king, you could actually block the prophecy from coming true by refusing to cooperate with him, ever.”
“Oh, yes! I would do anything to keep Jugenheim and Kaia safe—but there’s just one problem!”
“What’s that?”
