Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

Thor’s snores died away into a gasping rattle. The red-bearded god rubbed his eyes, sat up, and spat.

«Up, all Æsir’s men!» he said. «Ah, Harald of the Turnips, you are already awake. Cold salmon will be our breakfast again since your fire magic failed.» Then, as he saw Shea stiffen: «Nay, take it not unkindly. We Æsir are not unkind to mortals, and I’ve seen more unpromising objects than you turn out all right. Make a man of you yet, youngling. Just watch me and imitate what I do.» He yawned and the yawn spread into a bristling grin.

The others bestirred themselves. Thjalfi got out some smoked salmon. However good the stuff was, Shea found the third successive meal of it a little too much.

They were just beginning to gnaw when there was a heavy tramp outside. Through the rain loomed a grey shape whose outline made Shea’s scalp tingle. It was mannish, but at least ten feet tall, with massive columnar legs. It was a giant.

The giant stooped and looked into the travellers’ refuge.

Shea, his heart beating madly, backed up against the curving wall, his hand feeling for his hunting knife. The face that looked in was huge, with bloodshot grey eyes and a scraggly iron-grey beard, and its expression was not encouraging.

«Ungh,» snarled the giant, showing yellow snags of teeth. His voice was a couple of octaves beneath the lowest human bass. «’Scuse me, gents, but I been looking for my glove. How ’bout having a little breakfast together, huh?»

Shea, Thjalfi and Loki all looked at Thor. The Red God stood with feet wide apart, surveying the giant for some minutes. Then he said, «Good is guesting on a journey. We offer some smoked salmon. But what have you?»

«The name’s Skrymir, buddy. I got some bread and dried dragon meat. Say, ain’t you Thor Odinnsson, the hammer thrower?»

«That is not incorrect.»

«Boy, oh, boy, ain’t that something?» The giant made a horrible face that was probably intended for a friendly grin. He reached around for a bag that hung at his back and sitting down in front of the shelter, opened it. Shea got a better view of him, though not one that inspired a more favourable impression. The monster’s long grey hair was done up in a topknot with bone skewers stuck through it. He was dressed entirely in furs, of which the cloak must have come from the grandfather of all the bears, though it was none too large for him.

Skrymir rook from his bag a slab of Norse bread the size of a mattress, and several hunks of leathery grey meat. These he slapped down in front of the travellers. «All right, youse guys help yourselves,» he rumbled. «Let’s see some of that salmon, huh?»

Thjalfi mutely handed over a piece of the salmon on which the giant set noisily to work. He drooled, now and then wiping his face with the back of his huge paw, and getting himself well smeared with salmon grease.

Shea found he had to break up his portion of the bread with his knife-handle before he could manage it, so hard was the material. The dragon meat was a little easier, but still required some hard chewing, and his jaw muscles were sore from the bearing they had taken in the last twenty-four hours. The dragon meat had a pungent, garlicky flavour that he didn’t care for.

As Shea gnawed he saw a louse the size of a cockroach crawl out from the upper edge of one of Skrymir’s black fur leggings, amble around a bit in the jungle of hair below the giant’s knee, and stroll back into its sanctuary. Shea almost gagged. His appetite tapered off, though presently it returned. After what he had been through lately, it would take more than a single louse to spoil his interest in food for any length of time. What the hell?

Loki, grinning slyly, asked: «Are there turnips in your bag, Hairy One?»

Skrymir frowned. «Turnips? Naw. Whatcha want with ’em?»

«Our warlock» — Loki jerked his thumb at Shea — «eats them.»

«What-a-at? No kiddin’!» roared the giant. «I heard of guys that eat bugs and drink cow’s milk, but I ain’t never heard of nobody what eats turnips.»

Shea said: «That’s how I get some of my magic powers,» with a somewhat sickly smile, and felt he had come out of it fairly well.

Skrymir belched. It was not an ordinary run-of-the-mine belch, but something akin to a natural cataclysm. Shea tried to hold his breath until the air cleared. The giant settled himself and inquired: «Say, how come youse is travelling in Jöunheim?»

«The Wing Thor travels where he will,» observed Loki loftily, but with a side glance.

«Aw right, aw right, butcha don’t have to get snotty about it. I just was thinking there’s some relations of Hrungnir and Geirröd that was laying for Thor. They’d just love to have a chance to get even witcha for bumping off those giants.»

Thor rumbled: «Few will be more pleased than I to meet —»

But Loki interrupted: «Thank you for the warning, friend Skrymir. Good is the guesting when men are friendly. We will do as much for you one of these days. Will you have more salmon?»

«Naw, I had all I want.»

Loki continued silkily, «Would it be impertinence to ask whither your giantship is bound?»

«Aw, I’m going up to Utgard. Utgardaloki’s throwing a big feed for all the gaints.»

«Great and glorious will be that feasting.»

«You’re damn right it’ll be great. All the hill giants and frost giants and fire giants together at once say, that’s something!»

«It would give us pleasure to see it. If we went as guests of so formidable a giant as yourself, none of Hrungnir’s or Geirröd’s friends would dare make trouble, would they?»

Skrymir showed his snags in a pleased grin. «Them punks? Haw, they wouldn’t do nothing.» He picked his teeth thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. «Yeah, I guess you can come. The big boss, Utgardaloki, is a good guy and a friend of mine. So you won’t have no trouble. If youse’ll clear outta my glove, we can start right now.»

«What?» All four spoke at once.

«Yeah. My glove, that’s what you slept in.»

The implications of this statement were so alarming that the four travellers picked up their belongings and scrambled out of the shelter with ludicrous haste — the mighty Thor included.

* * *

The rain had ceased. Ragged serpents of mist, pearly against the darker grey of the clouds, crawled over the hills. Outside, the travellers looked back at their shelter. There was no question that it was an enormous glove.

Skrymir grasped the upper edge of the opening with his left hand and thrust the right into the erstwhile dwelling. From where he stood, Shea couldn’t see whether the big glove had shrink to fit or whether it had faded out of sight and been replaced by a smaller one. At the same time he became suddenly conscious of the fact that he was wet to the skin.

Before he had a chance to think over the meaning of these facts, Thor was bellowing at him to help get the chariot loaded.

When he was sitting hunched upon the chest and swaying to the movement of the cart, Thjalfi murmured to him: «I knew Loki would get around the Hairy One. When it’s something that calls for smartness, ye can depend on Uncle Fox, I always say.»

Shea nodded silently and sneezed. He’d be lucky if he didn’t come down with a first-class cold, riding in these wet garments. The landscape was wilder and bleaker around them than even on the previous day’s journey. Ahead Skrymir tramped along, the bag on his back swaying with his strides, his sour sweat smell wafting back over the chariot.

Wet garments. Why? The rain had stopped when they emerged from that monstrous glove. There was something peculiar about the whole business of that glove. The others, including the two gods, had unhesitatingly accepted its huge size as an indication that Skrymir was even larger and more powerful than he seemed. He was undoubtedly a giant — but hardly that much of a giant. Shea supposed that although the world he was in did not respond to the natural laws of that from which he had come, there was no reason to conceive that the laws of illusion had changed. He had studied psychology enough to know something of the standard methods used by stage magicians. But others, unfamiliar both with such methods and the technique of modem thought, would not think of criticizing observation with pure logic. For that matter, they would not think of questioning the evidence of observation — «You know,» he whispered suddenly to Thjalfi, «I just wonder whether Loki is as clever as he thinks, and whether Skrymir isn’t smarter than he pretends.»