Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

Thjalfi looked up suddenly, frowning. «What’s that noise?»

«What noise?» said Thor. Then he jumped up — he had been sitting with his back to the cave mouth — and spun around. «Hai, Clever One, our cave is already not untenanted!» He backed away slowly. From the depths of the cave there came a hiss like that of a steam-pipe leak, followed by a harsh, metallic cry.

«A dragon!» cried Thjalfi. A puff of yellow gas from the cave set them all coughing. A scrape of scales, a rattle of loose stones, and in the dark a pair of yellow eyes the size of dinner plates caught the reflection of the fire.

Æsir, giant, and Thjalfi shouted incoherently, grabbing for whatever might serve as a weapon.

«Here, I cad take care of hib!» cried Shea, forgetting his previous reasoning. He pulled out the revolver. As the great snakelike head came into view in the firelight, he aimed at one of the eyes and pulled the trigger.

The hammer clicked harmlessly. He tried again and again, click, click. The jaws came open with a reek of chlorine.

Harold Shea stumbled back. There was a flash of movement past his head. The butt end of a young tree, wielded by Skrymir, swished down on the beast’s head.

The eyes rolled. The head half turned towards the giant. Thor leaped in with a roaring yell, and let fly a right hook that would have demolished Joe Louis. There was a crunch of snapping bones; the fist sank right into the reptile’s face. With a scream like that of a disembowelled horse the head vanished into the cave.

Thjalfi helped Shea up. «Now maybe ye can see,» remarked the servant of gods, «why Skrymir would as lief not take chances with the Lord of the Goats.» He chuckled. «That there dragon’s going to have him a toothache next spring — if there is any spring before the Time .»

The dwarf popped out again. «Hai, Skrymir!»

«Huh?»

«I tried to warn you that a fire would bring the dragon out of hibernation. But you wouldn’t listen. Think you’re smart, don’t you? Yah! Yah! Yah!» The vest-pocket Santa Claus capered in the cave mouth for an instant, thumbing his nose with both hands. He vanished as Skrymir picked up a stone to throw.

The giant lumbered over to the cave and felt around inside.

«Never catch the little totrug now. They have burrows all through these hills,» he observed gloomily.

* * *

The evening meal was eaten in a silence made more pointed for Shea by the fact that he felt it was mostly directed at himself. He ought to have known better, he told himself bitterly.

In fact, he ought to have known better than to embark on such an expedition at all. Adventure! Romance! Bosh! As for the dream-girl whose fancied image he had once in a rash moment described to Walter Bayard, those he had seen in this miserable dump were like lady wrestlers. If he could have used the formulas to return instantly, he would.

But he could not. That was the point. The formulas didn’t exist any more, as far as he was concerned. Nothing existed but the bleak, snowbound hillside, the nauseating giant, the two Æsir and their servant regarding him with aversion. There was nothing he could do —

Whoa, Shea, steady, he remarked to himself. You’re talking yourself into a state of melancholy, which is, as Chalmers once remarked, of no philosophical or practical value. Too bad old Doc wasn’t along, to furnish a mature intellect and civilized company. The intelligent thing to do, was not to bemoan the past but to live in the present. He lacked the physical equipment to imitate Thor’s forthright approach to problems. But he could at least come somewhere near Loki’s sardonic and intelligent humour.

And speaking of intelligence, had he not already decided to make use of it in discovering the laws of this world? Laws which these people were not fitted, by their mental habit, to deduce?

He turned suddenly and asked: «Didn’t that dwarf say the fire fetched the dragon our of hibernation?»

Skrymir yawned, and spoke. «Yeah. What about it, snotty?»

«The fire’s still here. What if he, or another one comes back during the night?»

«Prob’ly eat you, and serve you right.» He cackled a laugh.

«The niggeling speaks sooth,» said Loki. «It were best to move our camp.»

The accent of contempt in the voice made Shea wince. But he went on: «We don’t have to do that, do we, sir? It’s freezing now and getting colder. If we take some of that Snow and stuff it into the cave, it seems to me the dragon would hardly come out across it.»

Loki slapped a knee. «Soundly and well said, turnip-man! Now you and Thjalfi shall do it. I perceive you are not altogether without your uses, since there has been a certain gain in wit since you joined our party. Who would have thought of stopping a dragon with snow?»

Thor grunted.

When Shea awoke he was still sniffling, but at least his head was of normal weight. He wondered whether the chlorine he had inhaled the previous evening might not have helped the cold. Or whether the improvement were a general one, based on his determination to accept his surroundings and make the most of them.

After breakfast they set out as before, Skrymir tramping on ahead. The sky was the colour of old lead. The wind was keen, rattling the branches of the scrubby trees and whirling an occasional snowflake before it. The goats slipped on patches of frozen slush, plodding uphill most of the time. The hills were all about them now, rising steadily and with more vegetation, mostly pine and spruce.

It must have been around noon—Shea could only guess at the time — when Skrymir turned and waved at the biggest mountain they had yet seen. The wind carried away the giant’s words, but Thor seemed to have understood. The goats quickened their pace towards the mountain, whose top hung in cloud.

After a good hour of climbing, Shea began to get glimpses of a shape looming from the bare crest, intermittently blotted out by the eddies of mist. When they were close enough to see it plainly, it became clearly a house, not unlike that of the bonder Sverre. But it was cruder, made of logs with the bark on, and vastly bigger — as big as a metropolitan railroad terminal.

Thjalfi said into his ear: «That will be Utgard Castle. Ye’ll need whatever mite of courage ye have here, friend Harald.» The young man’s teeth were chattering from something other than cold.

Skrymir lurched up to the door and pounded on it with his fist. He stood there for a long minute, the wind flapping his furs. A rectangular hole opened in the door. The door swung open. The chariot riders climbed down, stretching their stiff muscles as they followed their guide. The door banged shut behind them. They were in a dark vestibule like that in Sverre’s house but larger and foul with the odour of unwashed giant. A huge arm pushed the leather curtain aside, revealing through the triangular opening a view of roaring yellow flame and thronging, shouting giants.

Thjalfi murmured: «Keep your eyes open, Harald. As Thjodolf of Hvin says:

All the gateways Ere one goes out

Thoughtfully should a man scan;

Uncertain it is Where sits the unfriendly

Upon the bench before thee.»

Within, the place was a disorderly parody of Sverre’s. Of the same general form, with the same benches, its tables were all uneven, filthy, and littered with fragments of food. The fire in the centre hung a pall of smoke under the rafters. The dirty straw on the floor was thick about the ankles.

The benches and the passageway behind them were filled with giants, drinking, eating, shouting at the tops of their voices. Before him a group of six, with iron-grey topknots and patchy beards like Skrymir’s, were wrangling. One drew back his arm in anger. His elbow struck a mug of mead borne by a harassed-looking man who was evidently a thrall. The mead splashed onto another giant, who instantly snatched up a bowl of stew from the table and slammed it on the man’s head.