“I want to find out something about humans—”
“Oh-ho!” The nereid’s fishlike eyes widened. “There’s a spell on you, gnome. King Breggir do it? But no—-he’d never fool with cold iron. Maybe Vulcan then?”
“Never you mind,” I snapped. “Have you ever seen a human? That’s all I want to know.”
“Ouch!” the nereid bubbled, sinking below the surface briefly. “Careful where you lean. You’re dropping cold iron on my head.”
“Sorry,” I said, leaning to the side. “But what about humans?”
“They don’t exist. You’re too old to believe in such things. Next thing you’ll be telling me you believe in science.”
“All right,” I snapped, turning away. “Just forget it.”
There was a cold lump of hopelessness in my chest.
The nereid splashed excitably. “But the ichor? Don’t I get any?”
I shook my head. “Why? You can’t help me.”
“Well—wait a minute. Maybe some other nereid can help you, gnome. Tell you what. I’ll go and see, if you’ll give me that ichor.”
“I’ll give you half,” I compromised and let her have it, though I was forced to yank the cup from her hand when she tried to gulp all the contents down at once. I’ll say one thing—nereids keep their word. It was scarcely ten minutes before she was back with a bedraggled companion, blind in one eye and with scars all over her. She could only mumble unintelligibly till I showed her the ichor. Then she brightened.
“Gimme! Gimme!”
The first nereid said, “This.is Sahaya. She’s crazy—tried to swim between Scylla and Charybdis a few centuries ago and never had a lick of sense since. But sometimes she’ll talk about humans.”
“Humans,” Sahaya mumbled, scratching her gills. ‘They’re real. I know. I know where the Drowned come from too. Before they come out of their chrysalis and come below they’re humans.”
“Hear that?” the first nereid giggled. “Looney as a sea-urchin.” She flipped her tail and dived indignantly as I shushed at her.
Sahaya was still watching my cup of ichor. “For me?” she begged.
“If you can help me. Notice anything funny about me?”
“The cold iron, you mean? An enchantment.”
“A human did it,” I said, trying to ignore the continual clink-clink at my feet.
Sahaya cackled and blew bubbles. She bobbed up and down gently in the pool. “See? See? There are such things!”
It was difficult trying to get Sahaya to understand what I wanted but I managed to at last. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I don’t know. I used to swim up almost to the Light. I’ve heard things. But where you can go to get a human curse taken away is more than I can tell.”
“You—you’ve heard things?”
“Voices. Some say I’m mad, gnome, but I know what I know. Voices speak to me out of the sea. I hear—humans—talking.”
A little chill went through me at that. But I kept on doggedly. “Maybe you’ve heard them mention something that might help. If a human gets in trouble”—fantastic thought!—“how would-he get out of it?”
Sahaya’s answer surprised me. “Ah, trouble, yes. They do. I’ve heard them. Their voices sometimes rise with pain and annoyance but their problems are always solved. It is Hel who aids them.”
“Hel? Loki’s child—the sister of Fenris-wolf?”
“Yes indeed. If a human is in trouble he is advised to go to Hel for aid. I presume he does though—well, I don’t really know.”
My voice shook with excitement. “If I went to Hel now do you suppose she could take off the curse?”
But Sahaya could only shrug her gills for answer. She saw the cup of ichor again and went to pieces. I tried to question her again but all she could say was, “Give me that!” So I did and she sank, drooling and bubbling, back into the depths.
I HAD made up my mind. I’d go to Hel. The way was known to me, of course though gnomes do little traveling. But the earth is our domain.
What suitable bribe could I take Hel, queen of the Underworld? I had no idea. Finally I ended up by taking nothing at all, determined to throw myself on her mercy: Not that she had any or she wouldn’t have been Hel—but my brain just wasn’t functioning any more.
I slipped out of my den. The Middle Kingdom was in an uproar. It was a wonder I wasn’t discovered though my way led into an unfrequented district where the Well of Tartarus is. I just climbed over the well-curb and dropped. It’s an interesting descent but too well known to every gnome for me to take the time to describe now.
So at the lower opening I called on Air and Darkness to carry me into the Fields and there they left me before the gates and went wailing back into the under-abyss. The granite walls of Dis rose up to the red lava sky. There was not a sound as I stood before those towering ramparts, watching the iron gates. How could I enter Dis?
Well, before I had a chance to think a gigantic three-headed shaggy monster charged at me, barking like mad, his fangs dripping with saliva, his six. eyes glaring. Cerberus is a discomforting sight always and I’d forgotten to bring him any cakes or bones. He couldn’t injure me seriously but his teeth could hurt a lot, so I waited till he’d come close and then tried a magic spell on myself.
At the last moment I remembered that I was under a human curse but it was too late to do anything about it then. For softie reason my own enchantment worked where the spells of other gnomes had failed. Perhaps I was inside the curse and that’s why I succeeded in turning myself into a flea.
Cerberus stopped, staring, and I jumped on his back. Perhaps it was pure meanness but I bit and bit hard and then regretted it as Cerberus started to scratch like an earthquake. I shut my eyes and clung to a hair and at last the tremors subsided. Then I settled down to wait.
They feed Cerberus at sundown. It didn’t seem very long before the dog turned and pranced back toward Dis. A little door at the bottom of one of the gates opened and closed behind us. Then everything was quite still.
If I’d cared to look around, I could have seen Dis. But I kept my eyes turned down. The stillness affected me unpleasantly and I knew from whose loins Hel’s father had sprung in the gray dawn of the Universe when Ymir’s roars had not yet died. Dis is not a good place to be in. . . .
Then I knew I was with Hel. I turned back into my own gnomish shape and jumped off Cerberus’ back. He turned on me with a snarl but paused instead and slunk into a corner, where he crouched, regarding me balefully out of his six red-rimmed eyes.
I got down very respectfully on my knees before Hel. The vast chamber in which I stood wasn’t very long or broad but it went up and up to a tapering cone far above. It was like the interior of a candle-flame.
I heard a voice say, “You may stand, gnome.”
I obeyed, but stared at the floor.
“You may look at me, gnome.”
Hel is all white, like a woman of lambent snow. Her flowing hair isn’t faded at all—it’s naturally white and so are her lips and her eyes. She had the sweetly round face of a virgin girl and a very tender smile—but her eyes were far and far away. She sat leaning forward slightly on a plain onyx throne, her hands clasped about one knee. She wore light.
“Do not speak,” she said. “Let me read your mind instead. I feel a curse and cold iron . . .”
I wasn’t afraid of Hel somehow. But I felt very little, very much alone, in that vast tall room in Dis.
At last she sighed and shook her head. “I cannot help you, gnome. My power does not reach above the surface of the earth.”
She saw my despondency. “Here is one who may help you if, he chooses. It is my father.”
“Loki?” I thought.
“Loki, the Laugher, whose children were his greatest jests. Aye,” the dim, soft voice went on, “sister to the snake and the wolf am I—and child of the traitor god. But not Fenris nor Midgard serpeant can help you, gnome. Loki may. Go to him.
“No,” she answered my u
nspoken thought. “You need take him no bribe. None would tempt the Laugher. He does what he wishes and is kind and cruel by turns. You may find him when he is kind. If so he will aid you.”
I bowed my head in grateful thanks. And the white woman said, “I give you warning. Beware of Loki’s jests. Now I send you to him.”
Somehow I knew that Hel’s hand hovered over my head. I had a horrible unreasoning dread that those cold fingers might touch me. They would be very soft and gentle, I knew, but I cowered down nevertheless.
Then magic took me and whirled me away. The tall room in Dis was gone. Hel vanished. I stood on yielding gray cloud with a laughing giant who reclined before me, squinting into the sunlight.
CHAPTER IV
Gno Place Like Gnome
HE propped himself up on one elbow and stared at me, a huge redbearded fox of a man with sly eyes and a wide mouth.
“Ho!” he chuckled. “Hel told me you were coming. Well, I am Loki!”
I bowed, but dared not speak with the curse on me. Loki laughed again.
“Do you think I fear cold iron? But you need not say anything—your mind is open to my eyes. You met a human and he cursed you. You wish the curse removed. Well, that is simple enough.” Loki lifted his great arm in a commanding gesture. For a space nothing happened while I stole surreptitious glances around. But there was nothing to see save the carpet of gray cloud that stretched to the horizon under a blue sky where Apollo rode high.
Silently. I wondered. Had I caught Loki in a kind mood or in a cruel one? The red god laughed. He had caught my thought. He nodded to me reassuringly.
“Wait. I’ll take off the curse. Humans exist, gnome, but it’s very seldom that any of them pass the Veil. Sometimes we see them as phantoms, dimly and vaguely. Yet they have their own world.” Loki squinted at me. “Humans shouldn’t practise magic. I don’t like it. Well—”
Somehow I felt a little tug of uneasiness at his words. It was gone immediately as a dark shape rose up through the floor of shifting cloud.
It was a gray woman, a withered ancient crone. She held a spool of threads in one knobby hand. Silently she selected one thread from the rest and gave it to Loki. Then she sank down and vanished without trace. The mists closed above her cowled head.
Loki stretched the thread between his fingers. “The Norns weave the destiny of humans. This thread will lead you to the one who put the spell upon you. But you must take him a bribe or he will not take off the curse.”
“What bribe?” I asked. Cold iron fell down through the floor-clouds.
Loki grinned. “I’ll provide you with that. Just do as I say and you’ll be all right.”
“Well—” I hesitated. “What shall I do with the thread afterward?”
“Eh? Oh—just let go of it. It’ll snap back into its place on the Norns’ spool.” Loki’s squinted eyes held a look I didn’t like. He resembled a fox more than ever. But before I could say another word the god waved his hand and I went spinning and dropping through the gray cloud-masses. I found I had the thread, one end of it, clutched tightly in my fist.
And somehow, I thought I heard Loki’s voice whispering, “Humans shouldn’t practise magic . . .”
The clouds were gone. I felt solid wood under my feet. It was dark but gradually my eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom. The moon was shining through rectangular gaps in what I took to be a wall.
I was in a cavern—a huge square one made of wood. There was the same crawling heat down my spine I had first felt when I encountered the human. This must be one of their dens!
I held the thread in a sweaty palm. Its other end I couldn’t see though it seemed to stretch up and up.
There were big square objects piled up all around me, with lettering on them. And signs in some alien language which nevertheless bore a strange resemblance to Ancient Elf. I couldn’t understand them but I still recall how they looked, and jotted them down from memory afterward, for curiosity’s sake.
They looked like this:
NO SMOKING! DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVES!
Loki’s disembodied voice said in my mind, “That box beside you—”
“Box?” The word was unfamiliar to me.
“There.” My gaze was dragged to a wooden container which held dozens of neatly-packed roundish objects. Cold iron! But they couldn’t harm me while I was under the curse.
“Take one,” Loki said. I obeyed, examining the thing with curiosity. But I didn’t know what it was.
I remember the legend on the side of the box. It looked like hand grenades, whatever that meant.
Loki’s voice came, with an undercurrent of laughter. “The Norns’ thread will lead you to your human. When you face him take but that little, pin in the side of the—bribe—and-throw it at his feet. After that, you’ve only to ask him to take off the curse and he’ll be glad to oblige. Good luck, little gnome,” the red god ended—and his voice fell silent.
I felt almost happy again. Soon I’d be free from the doom of cold iron. Once that curse was removed I could face anything else—even King Breggir’s anger. So I shut my eyes and waited.
I FELT the destiny-thread jerk me through dimensions. When I looked again, I was in—
A den of humans!
No wonder I clutched the bribe to my breast, shivering with fright. I can’t begin, to describe the place. It was all square and curves with the most horrible alien colors you can imagine. A place where the blackest sort of science might be practised!
I saw the human at the same time he saw me. He let out a perfectly indescribable sound and dropped the bottle he was holding. “Again!” he yelped. “Or is it another one?”
“I’m the same gnome,” I said placatingly. “You ought to know that after what you did.”
He retrieved the bottle and drank out of it. “Ah—what I did? I don’t get you.”
“The curse. The one you put on me. Cold iron, you know.” And now he noticed, the round pebbles that were falling from my mouth. His eyes got large.
“I—ulp—I did that?”
“Yes.”
Clink.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. Drunk or dreaming, I apologize.”
“Won’t you take it off?” I begged.
He blinked at me. “Take it off?”
“The curse.”
“Look,” he said. “I’d be glad to after what you did for me but I don’t know how.”
I let out a squeak of disappointment. “But you’ve got to! I’ve brought you a bribe.”
“Glory,” said the human, “I don’t want any more. I’ve got enough now. Those rubies you left were plenty.”
I stared—and suddenly remembered the bag of rubies I’d abandoned during my hasty flight from the first interview with the creature. He’d found them then.
“Thousands,” the Man gloated cryptically, waving the bottle. “I’m living in a penthouse now. I’m writing, a novel. A good one too—earthy. The old Hemingway touch. Those rubies—well, thanks.”
“You’re quite welcome,” I said politely. “But you must be able to take off the curse. You put it on me just by saying cold iron would drop out of my mouth;”
He took another drink, considered, and nodded. “It’s worth trying. Okay. I take the curse off you.”
“Thank you,” I said experimentally, and then stood with my mouth wide open. No ‘cold iron’ had dropped out of it!
“It—it worked!” I gasped. “It worked! Thank Loki!”
Perhaps I was a bit hysterical, but for the moment I really forgot I was talking to a human. It was so wonderful just to be able to speak without iron falling from my lips at every word. I—well, I told the Man everything. And he sat and listened, still drinking out of the bottle. Soon he got out another one and started on that.
Finally he took the bribe out of my hand and considered it thoughtfully. “You’d better let me have that,” he said. “I’ll dispose of this thing! Uh—thanks for bringing it. A grenade’s an unusual present at least.”
>
“The thread’,” I reminded him, holding up the Norn-thread. He didn’t touch it. He looked very white.
“Yes. Just—let it go, will you?”
I obeyed. The thread snapped out of my hand and vanished. The human drew a deep breath and I saw that his lips were bleeding. “Okay,” he said after a., second. “I guess I’m safe. What’s next on the program?”
“I’m going back to the Middle Kingdom,” I said. “If I can find my. way. Could you, maybe, show me the hole I came out of last time?”
“In Central Park? Sure. But you say King Breggir’s mad at you?”
I shrugged philosophically. “He may forgive me. If not, I’ll just have to be a salamander for awhile.”
BUT the human was thinking. “Yeah.
Maybe I can give you a bribe to take him. Here . . .” He went out, came back with a sack and filled it up with bottles that he took out of a small den-in the wall. “This is better than warm mud. It may soften the old so-and-so up a bit.”
“I—I can’t thank you enough,” I said, and my voice trembled with emotion. “Somehow you—you’re almost like a gnome to me.”
He shuddered at that, though I can’t imagine why, and took my hand. “We’ll go down in the service elevator. We’re just across the street from the park.”
I kept my eyes tightly shut and let the human guide me. It was better, I felt, that I did not see too much of this strange human-world. And at last I stood at the edge of the hole with the sack of bottles over my shoulder.
The man squeezed my hand. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll never believe this, of course, but it seems quite real to me just now.” He eyed the sack. “Can you spare one of those bottles?”
I gave it to him and. he drank a good deal of the liquid in it. After that he fell on his face and didn’t move so I crawled down into the hole, dragging the sack after me. And hours later I was in the Middle Kingdom . . .
There isn’t much more to, tell. I had to talk fast or I’d have been turned into a salamander like winking—but the minute Breggir found I’d brought him a bribe he softened up. He mixed a cocktail of warm mud and human-elixir and grinned so widely the top of his head almost came off.
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