And then, “I suppose you had better come in,” he said. He opened the door.
And they came in.
CHAPTER 3
THE NIGHT CONVERSATION
ODD HAD IMAGINED THAT the side of salmon would feed him for a week or more. But bears and foxes and eagles all, he discovered, eat salmon, and he felt that feeding them was the least he could do to thank them for seeing him home. They ate until it was all gone, but only Odd and the eagle seemed satisfied. The fox and the bear both looked like they were still hungry.
“We’ll find more food tomorrow,” said Odd. “Sleep now.”
The animals stared at him. He walked over to the straw mattress and climbed onto it, placing the crutch carefully against the wall, to pull himself up with when he woke. The bed didn’t smell like his father at all, he realized, as he lay down. It just smelled like straw. Odd closed his eyes, and he was asleep.
Dreams of darkness, of flashes, of moments—nothing he could hold on to, nothing that comforted him. And then into the dream came a booming gloomy voice that said, “It wasn’t my fault.”
A higher voice, bitterly amused, said, “Oh, right. I
“It’s because of you we’re in this mess.”
He sat up, leaned against the wall. The bear and the eagle both ignored him. The fox darted him a green-eyed glance.
“You were talking,” said Odd.
The animals looked at Odd and at one another. If they did not actually say “Who? Us?” it was there in their expressions, in the way they held themselves.
“
“We weren’t arguing,” said the bear. “Because we can’t talk.” Then it said, “Oops.”
The fox and the eagle glared at the bear, who put a paw over its eyes and looked ashamed of itself.
Odd sighed. “Which one of you wants to explain what’s going on?” he said.
“Nothing’s going on,” said the fox brightly. “Just a few talking animals. Nothing to worry about. Happens every day. We’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.”
The eagle fixed Odd with its one good eye. Then it turned to the fox. “Tell!”
The fox shifted uncomfortably. “Why me?”
“Oh,” said the bear, “I don’t know. Possibly because it’s
“
The bear pushed itself up onto all fours. It made a rumbling noise, then it said, “We can talk because, O mortal child—do not be afraid—beneath these animal disguises we wear…well, not actual disguises, I mean we
“Gods!” screeched the eagle.
“Gods?” said Odd.
“Aye. Gods,” said the bear. “I was just getting to that. I am great Thor, Lord of the Thunders. The eagle is Lord Odin, All-father, greatest of the Gods. And this runt-eared meddling fox is—”
“Loki,” said the fox smoothly. “Blood-brother to the Gods. Smartest, sharpest, most brilliant of all the inhabitants of Asgard, or so they say—”
“Brilliant?” snorted the bear.
“You would have fallen for it. Anyone would,” said the fox.
“Fallen for
“Freya,” said the bear. “The Giant wanted Freya. Most lovely of the Goddesses—with, obviously, the exception of Sif, my own little love. And it wanted the Sun and the Moon.”
“If you interrupt me one more time,” said the fox, “
The bear said, “Yes, but—”
The bear made a noise, a small grumpy harrumph of disbelief. The fox looked at him sharply.
“I said
“‘Hail yourself,’ says I. ‘Hail, most beautiful of creatures,’ at which she laughed prettily and her eyes sparkled and I knew she liked me. ‘And what would a young lady of such loveliness be doing, a-wandering alone, and at night, with wolves and trolls and worse on the loose? Let me offer you hospitality—the hospitality of Loki, mightiest and wisest of all the lords of Asgard. I declare that I shall take you into my own house and care for you in every way that I can!’
“‘I cannot accept your offer, O brave and extremely good-looking one,’ she said to me, eyes shining like twin sapphires in the moonlight. ‘For although you are obviously tall and powerful and extremely attractive, I have promised my father—a king who lives far from here—that I will not give my heart or my lips to any but he who possesses one thing.’
“‘And that one thing is?’ says I, determined to bring her anything she named.
“‘Mjollnir,’ says the maiden. ‘The Hammer of Thor.’
“Hah! Pausing only to tell her not to go anywhere, my feet flew, and like the wind I rushed to the great hall. They were all asleep, or so drunk it made no never mind. There was Thor, sleeping in a drunken stupor, his face on the gravy-covered wooden trencher, and hanging from his side, his hammer. Only the nimble fingers of Loki, wiliest and cleverest, could have teased it from the belt without waking Thor—”
At this, the bear made a deep noise in the back of its throat. After glaring at it for a moment, the fox said, “Heavy it was, that hammer. Heavier than people dream. It weighed as much as a small mountain. Too heavy to carry, if you are not Thor. And yet, not too much for my genius. I took off my shoes, which, as I said, can walk on the air, and I tied them, one to the handle and one to the head. Then I snapped my fingers and the hammer followed me.
“This time I hurried to the gates of Asgard. I unbarred them and I walked through—followed, I do not need to tell you, by the hammer.
“The maiden was there. She was sitting on a boulder and she was weeping.
“‘Why the tears, O loveliness itself?’ I asked.
“At that, she looked up at me with a tear-stained face. ‘I weep because once I saw you, great and noble lord, I knew I could never love another. And yet I am doomed to give my heart and my caress only to he who lets me touch the Hammer of Thor.’
“I reached out a hand and touched her cold, wet cheek. ‘Dry your tears,’ I told her. ‘And behold…the Hammer of Thor!’
“She stopped crying then, and reached out her delicate hands and held the hammer tightly. I had reckoned I could have my fun with the lady and still get the hammer back into the hall before Thor woke up. But we would need to get a move on.
“‘Now,’ I said. ‘About that kiss.’
“For a moment I thought she had begun to cry once again, and then I knew that she was laughing. But the noise she made was not a sweet, tinkling, maidenly laugh. It was a deep, crashing noise, like an ice sheet grinding against a mountainside.
“The maiden pulled my shoes from the hammer and dropped them to the ground. She held the hammer as if it was a feather. A wave of cold engulfed me, and I found myself looking up at her, and to make matters worse she wasn’t even a
“WHAT’S THAT YOU’VE GOT there?” asked the fox.
“It’s a lump of wood,” said Odd. “My father began to carve it into something years ago, and he left it here, but he never came back to finish it.”
“What was it going to be?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Odd. “My father used to say that the carving was in the wood already. You just had to find out what the wood wanted to be, and then take your knife and remove everything that wasn’t that.”
“Mm.” The fox seemed unimpressed.
Odd was riding on the bear’s back. The fox trotted along beside them. High above them, the eagle rode the winds. The sun shone in a cloudless blue sky, and it was colder than it had been when there was cloud cover. They were heading towards higher ground, along a rocky ridge, following a frozen river. The wind hurt Odd’s face and ears.
“This won’t work,” said the bear gloomily. “I mean, whatever it is, it won’t.”
Odd said nothing.
“You’re smiling, aren’t you,” said the bear. “I can tell.”
The thing was this: You got to Asgard, the place the Gods came from, by crossing the Rainbow Bridge, which was called Bifrost. If you were a God, you simply wiggled your fingers and a rainbow appeared, and you walked across it.
High above them, the eagle rode the winds.
Well, they didn’t in midwinter.
Odd thought about it. He thought about the way rainbows appeared on rainy days, when the sun came out.
“I think,” said the bear, “as a responsible adult, I should point a few things out.”
“Talk is free,” said Odd, “but the wise man chooses when to spend his words.” It was something his father used to say.
“I just thought I should point out that we are wasting our time. We don’t have any way of getting to the Rainbow Bridge. And if by some miracle we crossed it, look at us—we’re animals, and you can barely walk. We can’t defeat Frost Giants. This whole thing is hopeless.”
“He’s right,” said the fox.
“If it’s hopeless,” said Odd, “why are you coming with me?”
The animals said nothing. The morning sun sparkled up at them from the snow, dazzling Odd, making him squint.
“Nothing better to do,” said the bear after a while.
“Up here!” said Odd. He clung tightly to the bear’s fur as they clambered up the side of a steep hill. They could see the mountains beyond.
“Stop,” said Odd. The waterfall was one of his favorite places in the world. From spring until midwinter it ran high and fast before it crashed down almost a hundred feet into the valley beneath, where it had carved out a rocky basin. In high summer, when the sun barely set, the villagers would come out to the waterfall and splash around in the basin pool, letting the water tumble onto their heads.