Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

«Witch!» Thor shouted at last, and seized her arm to twist it. Elli caught his neck with her free hand. There was a second’s scuffle and Thor skidded away, falling to one knee.

«That’s enough!» said Utgardaloki, stepping between them. «That counts as a fall; Elli wins. I guess it’s a good job you didn’t try to rassle with any of the big guys here, Thor, old kid?» The other giants roared an approval that drowned Thor’s growl.

Utgardaloki continued: «Awright, you, stand back! Get back, I say, or I’ll cut the blood-eagle on a couple of you! Next event’s an eating contest. Bring Loki up here. We got some eating for him to do.»

A fire giant shuffled through the press. His black hair had a reddish tinge, and his movements were quick and animal-like. «Is it lunch time yet?» he rasped. «Them three elk let for breakfast just kinda got my appetite going.»

Utgardaloki explained and introduced him to his opponent. «Please to meetcha,» said Logi. «I always like to see a guy what appreciates good food. Say, you ought come down to Muspellheim sometime. We got a cook there what knows how to roast a whale right. He uses charcoal fire and bastes it with bear grease —»

«That’ll do, Logi,» said Utgardaloki. «You get that guy talking about the meals he’s et and he’ll talk till the Time comes.»

Shea was pushed back by giants as they crowded in. An eddy of the crowd carried him still farther away from the scene of action as the giants made way for a little procession of harried-looking slaves. These bore two huge wooden platters, on each of which rested an entire roasted elk haunch. Shea stood on tiptoe and stretched Between a pair of massive shoulders he glimpsed Utgardaloki taking his place at the middle of a long table, at each end of which sat one of the contestants.

A shoulder moved across Shea’s field of vision, and he glanced up at the owner. It was a comparatively short giant, who bulged out in the middle to make up for his lack of stature. A disorderly mop of black-and-white hair covered his head. But the thing that struck Shea was that, as the giant turned profile to watch the eaters, the eye that looked from under the piebald thatch was bright blue.

That was wrong. Fire giants, as he had noted, had black eyes, hill giants grey or black eyes, frost giants pink. Of course, this giant might have a trace of some other blood — but there was a familiar angle to that long, high-bridged nose and something phony-looking about the mop of hair. Heimdall!

Shea whispered behind his hand: «How many mothers did you have, giant with the uncombed thatch?»

He heard a low chuckle and the answer came back: Thrice three, man from an unknown world! But there is no need to shout; I can hear your lightest whisper, even your thoughts half formed.»

«I think we’re being tricked,» continued Shea. He didn’t say it even in a whisper this time, merely thought it, moving his lips.

The answer was pat: «That is what was to be expected, and for no other reason did I come hither. Yet I have not solved the nature of the spells.»

Shea said; «I have been taught a spell» — and remembered Heimdall’s enmity to Loki and all his works, just in time to keep from mentioning Uncle Fox — «which may be of use in such a case.»

«Then use it,» Heimdall answered, «while you watch the contest.»

«Awright, ready, you two?» Utgardaloki shouted. «Go!»

The giants gave a shout. Shea, his eyes fixed on Loki, was repeating: «Nyi — Nidri — Nordri — Sudri.» The sly god bounced in his oversize chair as he applied his teeth to the elk haunch. The meat was disappearing a hunks the size of a mans fist at the rate of two hunks per second. Shea had never seen anything like it, and wondered where Loki was putting it all. He heard Thjalfi’s voice, thin in the basso-profundo clamour of the giants: «Besit yourself, Son of Laufey!!»

Then the bone, the size of a baseball bat, was clean. Loki dropped it clattering to the platter and sat back with a sigh. A whoop went up from the assembled giants. Shea saw Loki start forward again, the eyes popping from his head. Utgardaloki walked to the opposite end of the table. He bellowed «Logi wins!»

Shea turned to look at the other contestant. But his head bumped a giant’s elbow so violently that he saw stars. His eyes beaded with tears. For one fleeting second he saw no Logi there at all, only a great leaping flame at the opposite end of the table. A flicker — the teardrop was gone, and with it the picture.

Logi sat contentedly at the other end of the table, and Loki was crying: «He finished no sooner than myself!»

«Yeah, sonny boy, but he et the bone and the platter too. I said Logi wins!» boomed Utgardaloki.

«Heimdall!» Shea said it so loud that the god thrust a hand towards him. Fortunately the uproar around drowned his voice. «It is a trick an illusion. Logi is a flame.»

«Now, good luck go with your eyes, no-warlock and warlock. Warn Asa-Thor, and use your spell on whatever you can see, for it is more than ever important that the hammer be found. Surely, these tricks and sleights must mean the Time is even nearer than we think, and the giants are desirous not to see that weapon in the hands of Redbeard. Go!»

Utgardaloki, posted on the table where the eating contest had been held was directing the clearing of a section of the hall. «The next event is a footrace,» he was shouting. «You, shrimp!» — Utgardaloki pointed at Thjalfi. You’re going to run against my son Hugi. Where is that young half-wit? « Hugi! »

«Here I am, pop.» A gangling, adolescent giant wormed his way to the front. He had little forehead and less chin, and a crop of pimples the size of poker chips. «You want me to run against him? He, he, he!» Hugi drooled down his chin as he laughed.

Shea ducked and dodged, squeezing through towards Thor, who was frowning with concentration as he watched the preparations for the race. Thjalfi and the drooling Hugi placed themselves at one end of the hall. «Go!» cried Utgardaloki, and they raced for the far end of the hall, a good three hundred yards away. Thjaifi went like the wind, but Hugi went like a bullet. By the time Thjafi had reached the far end his opponent was halfway back.

«Hugi wins first heat!» roared Utgardaloki above a tornado of sound. «It’s two outta three.»

The crowd loosened a little as the contestants caught their breath. Shea found himself beside Thor and Loki.

«Hai, Turnip Harald,» rumbled the Redbeard, «where have you been?»

«It is more like anything else that he has been concealed under a table like a mouse,» remarked Loki, but Shea was too full of his news to resent anything.

«They’re trying to put over tricks on you on — us,» he burst out. «All these contests are illusions.»

He could see Thor’s lips curl. «Your warlock can see deeper into a millstone than most,» growled he angrily to Loki.

«No, but I mean it, really.» Hugi had just passed them to take his place for the second heat, the hall’s huge central fire on the other side. «Look,» said Shea. «That runner of theirs. He casts no shadow!»

Thor glanced and as comprehension spread across his features, turned purple. But just then Utgardaloki cried «Go!» again, and the second race was on. It was a repetition of the first. Utgardaloki announced over a delighted uproar that Hugi was the winner.

«I am to pick up their damned cat next,» growled Thor. «If that be another trick of theirs, I’ll —»

«Not so loudly,» whispered Loki. «Soft and slow is the sly fox taken. Now, Thor, you shall try this cat-lifting as though nothing were amiss. But Harald here, who is only half subject to their spells because he is a mortal and without fear, shall search for Mjöllnir. Youngling, you are our hope and stay. Use the spell I gave you.»