Asimov's SF, October-November 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “What is this?” Signy asked.

  “Skyr.”

  “Why is it gray?”

  “We put in a little ground rock to give texture and flavor. Your human skyr is bland.”

  The troll wife gave her a bent pewter spoon. This was clearly human. Well, the East Fjords were full of empty farmhouses and fishing villages. If the trolls scavenged, who was harmed? She used the spoon to eat. The skyr was gritty, but edible. A little lava dust would do her no harm.

  “The council will take a while,” Hrauna said and sat down. “We trolls do not decide quickly.”

  This was a good time for an interview, Signy thought, and to find the answers to some questions that had begun to occur to her. She reached into her pocket and turned on the recorder. “What is the oil in the lamp?”

  Hrauna looked embarrassed. “Kerosene. We don't need much. For the most part, we like the dark. But what we need we steal from gas stations. We used to use the oil from seals and whales, but it's hard for us to fish in the ocean. Our own boats wore out long ago, and there aren't as many human boats to borrow as there used to be. We don't know how to operate the ones with engines. It's easier to steal the kerosene.”

  “If you like darkness, why do you use torches and lamps?”

  “For you, at the moment,” Hrauna answered. “And while we don't need light to see, we enjoy it. Moonlight and starlight are lovely, shining on the mountains and the ocean. Fire is useful for cooking, and there is something comforting about the light of torches and lamps. Only sunlight is dangerous.”

  She thought about this for a moment, then remembered another question. “The queen spoke about Idun's apples getting cored. I don't know that story. Is there one?”

  “Yes,” said Hrauna. “I will tell it, if you wish. It will take up time.”

  “Please do,” Signy said.

  The troll wife began, speaking formally, as if the story came from long ago, when people—even trolls, apparently—spoke in a more elevated fashion.

  LOKI AND THE APPLE CORER

  “The goddess Idun tended a grove of apple trees that blossomed and bore fruit at the same time. The blossoms were white, with an aroma that was both sweet and delicate. The apples were golden-skinned, with crisp flesh as white as the apple blossoms and a sharp, almost bitter flavor. Everyone who ate them found them delicious. The gods ate them daily, and the apples kept them young.

  “Now and then Idun became tired of tending the grove and took a vacation. She had a summer house in the mountains far from Asgard. Sometimes she went there alone; sometimes the god Tyr went with her. He was the bravest of the gods, and she was the kindest of the goddesses. They got along well.

  “While she was gone, one of the other goddesses tended the apple grove. Usually it was Frigg—who was Odin's wife, a woman both lovely and wise. But in this story, Freya the goddess of love was chosen.

  “At first, everything went well. But then Freya became irritated by the apple cores. When the gods ate the apples, they chewed down to the cores. But the seeds were especially bitter, so they ate no farther. Instead, they tossed the cores into the grass that grew below the apple trees.

  “After a day or two, the ground under the trees absorbed the cores. Until then, they were slippery underfoot, and they attracted bugs, which Freya did not like. She was a fastidious goddess with a strong sense of her own beauty. She did not like the way she looked when she batted at flying bugs or slipped on apple cores. So she began to complain to the other gods about their bad manners and lack of neatness. Idun had never done this, and it was difficult for the gods to change their habits. Freya became more and more strident, and the gods no longer took pleasure in eating the apples.

  “What should they do with the cores, if they did not throw them into the grass? No one wanted to walk around carrying an apple core as it turned brown, and it seemed wrong to toss the cores in a midden heap. They were, after all, magical and in Idun's care. She might ask about them, when she came home. Finally, Loki said he had an idea.

  “Loki was unreliable, and the gods should not have listened, but they were tired of Freya's complaints. They told Loki to try his idea. He left Asgard, going to the realm of the dwarves, who were the most skillful makers anywhere, and described the thing he wanted them to make.

  “'We can do this,’ the dwarves said. ‘In return, we want the apple cores.'

  “'Why?’ asked Loki.

  “'You gods remain forever young, but we dwarves age. We intend to plant the apple seeds and grow our own grove of youth.'

  “Loki, who never thought things through, agreed. The dwarves made the device he wanted. It did not look exactly as he imagined. The dwarves improved the idea, as they usually did.

  “It was a metal box with a hole on top. A cup rested on the hole, and the hole went through the cup. To the side was an arm on a hinge. A cylinder was attached to the middle of the arm. When the arm was pulled down, the cylinder cut through whatever rested in the cup, and the cutout piece dropped into the box. Then the arm could be lifted, and the object in the cup picked up: a perfectly cored apple.

  “'This is excellent,’ Loki said.

  “'We have added some magic,’ the dwarves said. ‘The apples will always rest firmly in the cup, without moving or shifting position, and the cylinder will always cut cleanly. The cores will never get stuck in it, but will always drop neatly into the box. It seems like a lot of work to us, when a knife would work just as well. But we have done as you asked. We expect to get the apple cores in return.'

  “'You will,’ said Loki, and he took the device back to Asgard. It worked exactly as the dwarves had promised. Freya was no longer troubled by bugs or slippery footing. She returned to her usual lovely and pleasant self. The gods congratulated Loki and ate their apples in peace, enjoying the beauty of the apple grove and the sharp flavor of the fruit. Every day Loki took the full box away and returned with it empty.

  “He did not take the cores to the dwarves as he had promised, but to a hiding place only he knew. Maybe he had a plan for using them, or maybe he was simply refusing to keep his word. He was a liar by nature.

  “One day soon after, the goddess Frigg looked in her mirror. A white hair shone like silver in her otherwise golden hair. She stormed to her husband Odin, saying, ‘Something is wrong.'

  “Odin looked at her keenly with his one sharp eye. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I can see fine lines on your face, though I don't think they would be visible to anyone except me. I don't think this problem is with you alone. My missing eye has been paining me, and yesterday Thor complained to me about aches in his hammer hand.'

  “'Something has happened to the apples,’ said Frigg.

  “'Yes,’ said her mighty husband. He lifted the raven named Thought from his shoulder and told it, ‘Fly to Idun, and tell her we need her in Asgard.'

  “The raven flapped its wide, black wings and took off, sailing into the sky. Idun returned as soon as she got the message.

  “'What have you done with the apple cores?’ she asked. ‘It is the bitter seeds that keep my trees young.'

  “Everyone turned and looked at Loki.

  “'He did it,’ Freya said. ‘He has the apple cores.'

  “Tyr had returned with Idun. He had only one hand, but it was powerful. He grasped Loki around the neck and lifted him off the ground. ‘I will hold you here until you strangle, unless you tell us what you have done with the apple cores.'

  “Loki could not speak, but he waved his arms desperately, and Tyr set him down, shifting his grip to Loki's arm, so the trickster could not run away.

  “'I put the cores in a glacier, so they would not decay. Let me go, and I will bring them to you.'

  “'Nonsense,’ said Tyr. ‘You will lead me to your hiding place, while I keep a firm grip on you, and I will bring the apple cores back to Idun.’ “

  “That is what happened. As soon as Tyr spilled the cores onto the ground below the apple trees, they vanished into the soft, green grass. I
n a day or two, they were completely gone, absorbed into the ground. The trees regained their power, and the gods became young again. But Tyr let go of Loki in order to gather up the cores, and Loki ran off laughing. He had kept some of the apple seeds and planned to do something with them, though he wasn't sure what. And that is the story.”

  * * * *

  The troll wife stood up. “I need to look after my children.”

  She left, and Signy lay in the bare, stone room, the lamp flickering beside her. She had thought of herself as a modern woman, with her cell phone and computer, always connected to the World Wide Web, even in the lonely East Fjords. Now she was in this place out of myth, and she had a new myth about the ancient gods—one she knew she had never heard—on her recorder. Nothing was modern, except her recorder.

  She drifted into a dreamless sleep and woke when Hrauna shook her.

  “We have made a decision. The queen wants you to hear it.”

  She got up. “Do you have a bathroom?”

  “Pee here,” said Hrauna. “We don't intend to use this room again.”

  She did, while Hrauna waited in the tunnel. Then they walked through darkness together, till torchlight appeared in front of them. Signy felt dirty, in need of a shower and toothbrush. Maybe the trolls wouldn't notice her rumpled hair and morning breath.

  Everything was as before: the torches, the trolls, the queen in her chair like a lump of lava. The garnets in her crown glinted redly.

  "Grim the choice

  that humans give us.

  Canyons call us.

  Rivers complain.

  —

  "Hard the choice

  and hard the leaving,

  but leave we will

  our lovely land."

  “Leave?” asked Signy, feeling disappointed. She had been hoping, she realized, that the trolls would interfere with the project.

  “Yes,” said the troll queen. “Elves have been able to stop human projects, though never anything this big. We have not. As much as possible, we avoid humans.

  “We will move into the interior, either into one of the new National Parks or to land so bare that humans will never find a use for it.”

  “But there are plans for more projects,” Signy protested.

  “That is your problem. We will do what we must.”

  “Would you mind if I took a photograph of you?” Signy asked. “This is a historic moment.”

  The troll queen frowned, then nodded. Signy took out her camera and aimed it. The flash went off. The trolls shouted in surprise and fear. “It is not sunlight,” Signy said reassuringly.

  “Nonetheless, it is disturbing,” the troll queen said. “Don't do it again. Now, go. Write this story down, so people will remember us and our decision and our loss.”

  Hrauna led her from the troll throne room and though the tunnel that led outside. It was night, and the sky was overcast. Signy could see nothing, though she thought she could feel the mountains around her: vast, invisible shapes. Hrauna gathered her up and carried her home through the darkness.

  “We may not meet again,” the troll wife said after she set Signy down. “Farewell.”

  Surprised at herself, Signy hugged the troll wife and wished her the best of luck.

  The massive, lumpy creature hugged her in return, then left, loping into the night with her odd gait that looked clumsy, but was rapid and smooth.

  Signy went inside and turned on the lights. She checked the picture in her cell phone. Only the troll queen was visible, and the glare of the flash had removed all detail. Hella was an oddly shaped rock resting on another oddly shaped rock. The garnet crown was a handful of glints, which might well have been crystals in lava. Her two eyes were two more glints. Well, that was not useful, Signy thought. She turned on her recorder and listened to Hrauna's story. The troll wife's harsh voice was perfectly understandable, though she did not speak modern Icelandic. This was a voice from the past. She would take the recording to someone at the university, an expert on Old Icelandic, and see what response she got. But it was not proof that trolls existed, only that someone somewhere spoke an odd version of Icelandic.

  The troll queen had asked her to write down the story of their meeting and the trolls’ decision. She would do that. But she had no proof. As far as anyone could tell, the story was fiction. Fiction or not, it said something that was important, something that was true, whether or not people realized it was true.

  And that is that, she thought.

  But it wasn't.

  * * * *

  III.

  A week or two later, Hrafn drove back up. He climbed out of his car and said, “I forgot to mention, the cod was excellent. It may have been the best cod I have ever eaten. And it was so handsome that I took a picture of it, before I began to clean it. Thank you.”

  Signy told him he was welcome.

  He looked at the lights on the front of her house again. “I have been thinking about your groceries. Have you been making skyr for the demonstrators? They are pouring it on all kinds of respectable officials. Someone is making it, a lot of it, and in every possible color.”

  “No,” said Signy. “If you must know, I have been feeding the puffins.”

  “Milk and cookies?” Hrafn asked.

  “I am eccentric.”

  “It might be interesting to eat a puffin that has been fed on milk and cookies,” Hrafn said thoughtfully. “If you decide to cook any of your guests, give me a call.”

  He walked around the boulder that had been Steinn. “I remember this from my last visit. It was new then.”

  “A gift from my stalker,” Signy said. “His last gift, before he vanished.”

  “How did he move it?” Hrafn wondered.

  “I can't tell you.”

  “There's a story here,” Hrafn said. “If I had time, I would try to find it out. But I must defend respected officials from skyr.”

  He left and she went back to working on the story of the trolls. Another week passed. Then, one night there was a knock on her front door. She opened it. Hrauna stood there, blinking at the bright electric light.

  “Hrauna!” Signy said with pleasure.

  “I have another message from our queen. We are leaving in ten nights, and she would like you to come as a witness. I could take you there, but I will not be able to bring you back. Can you get to the Dark Canyon in your noisy metal machine?”

  “Yes,” Signy said. There was a road, though she had not traveled it since the Jokulsa a Bru River stopped flowing through the canyon. She had gone to say farewell to the river, before the dam shut it off. A sad journey.

  “Come in ten nights. There will be a moon, so you will be able to see. I will meet you at the canyon's edge. Don't worry about finding me. I will find you.”

  “I will come,” said Signy.

  Hrauna left, and Signy went back to reading. She was going back over all the myths about the old gods, looking for a version of the story of Loki and the apple corer. So far she had not found it.

  The night came, and she drove to the Dark Canyon. The sky was clear, except for a few clouds in the east over the ocean. The moon was three quarters full. She had no trouble along the way. When she reached the canyon, a lumpy figure stepped into the road and waved her down. It was Hrauna. “Stop your machine here,” the troll wife said. “I will lead you the rest of the way.”

  They walked over rough ground to the canyon's edge. She could not estimate the depth, since most of the canyon was hidden by shadow. But she knew it varied between 100 and 150 meters deep. Before the project, a turbulent river had filled the bottom. Now it was dry. She heard wind whispering and no other sound. Moonlight lit the far wall, maybe seventy-five meters away. She could see the sheer, bare, dark rock clearly.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Wait,” answered Hrauna.

  She peered into the darkness. Clouds were blowing in, and the moonlight became less clear and steady. It moved over the canyon walls, growing dim, then b
right, then dim again, as clouds flew past the moon.

  “We hoped for this,” said Hrauna. “We did not want people to see us leaving.”

  “But you picked a moonlit night.”

  “For you.”

  Now she saw motion in the moving light. Large figures were climbing up the canyon walls.

  “The trolls,” said Hrauna. “We had many settlements along the river. All are leaving.”

  The first figures reached the canyon rim, some on their side, though none close to them. Most were on the far side. They lowered ropes and pulled up packs. The packs were loaded on waiting trolls, who moved off, bent double by the weight of their loads.

  More trolls arrived on the surface. Some were children, clinging to their mothers’ backs. Others seemed ancient and were brought up in rope slings. They all gathered packs or bags and moved inland.

  More came, then more. There were hundreds.

  Now she saw other figures among the trolls. They were smaller and slimmer and moved with far more grace.

  “Who are those?” she asked.

  “Elves. They are leaving too. This project is too big for them to stop.”

  When they reached the surface, the elves seemed to flicker, becoming impossible to see in the changing moonlight. Was that a person or a shadow moving over the bare rock among the trolls?

  Still more figures climbed up, among the trolls and elves. These seemed both insubstantial and faintly luminous. They gleamed in the Dark Canyon like wisps of moonlit mist.

  “And those?” asked Signy.

  “Human ghosts. We are taking their bones with us, so they won't be left alone here.”

  A man climbed onto the rim not far from them. He was dressed like someone from the saga era. A sword hung at his side. His hair was blond, and he had a short, neatly trimmed blond beard. He turned and bent down, helping a woman onto the rim. She also appeared to come from the early days of Iceland. Two gold brooches gleamed on her shoulders. Her hair was long and very blond, more like silver than gold.

  They paused a moment, hand in hand, then looked at Signy and Hrauna. The man's eyes were pale and piercing. His gaze seemed to go through Signy like a spear. What did he see? How did she appear to someone so old and so obviously heroic? It was like looking at Gunnar of Hlidarend or Grettir Asmundarson, though neither of them had died around here.