Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

«It could be. It is an unusual art, mortal, and a great skill, but it could be. What then?»

«Well, then, this Stegg, I don’t think we can get far with him, I’ve seen his type before. He’s a — a — a something I can’t remember, but he lives in a world of his own imaginings, where he’s a king and we’re all his slaves. I remember, now— a paranoiac. You can’t establish contact with a mind like that.»

«Most justly and truly reasoned, Harald. From what I am able to catch of his thought this is no more than the truth.»

«But Snögg is something else. We can do something with him.»

«Much though I regret to say it, you do not drown me in an ocean of hope. Snögg is even more hostile than his unattractive brother.»

Shea grinned. At last he was in a position to make use of his specialized knowledge. «That’s what one would think. But I have studied many like him. The only thing that’s wrong with Snögg is that he has a. a feeling of inferiority — a complex we call it — about that nose of his. If somebody could convince him he’s handsome —»

«Snögg handsome! Ho, ho! That is a jest for Loki’s tongue.»

« Sssh! Please, Lord Heimdall. As I say, the thing he wants most is probably good looks. If we could. if we could pretend to work some sort of spell on his nose, tell him it has shrunk and get the other prisoners to corroborate —»

«A plan of wit! It is now to be seen that you have been associating with Uncle Fox. Yet do not sell your bearskin till you have caught the animal. If you can get Snögg sufficiently friendly to propose your plan, then will it be seen whether confinement has really sharpened your wits or only addled them. But, youngling, what is to prevent Snögg feeling his nose and discovering the beguilement for himself?»

«Oh, we don’t have to guarantee to take it all off. He’d be grateful enough for a couple of inches.»

When Snögg came on duty at nightfall, he found the dungeon as usual, except that Shea’s and Heimdall’s cell was noisy with shouts of encouragement to their entries in the great cockroach derby. He went over to the cell to make sure that nothing outside the rules of the prison was going on.

Shea met his suspicious glower with a grin. «Hi, there, friend Snögg! Yesterday I owed Heindall thirty million crowns, but today my luck has turned and it’s down to twenty-three million.»

«What do you mean?» snapped the troll.

Shea explained, and went on: «Why don’t you get in the game? We’ll catch a roach for you. It must be pretty dull, with nothing w do all night but listen to the prisoners snore.»

«Hm-m-m,» said Snögg, then turned abruptly suspicious again. «You make trick to let other prisoner escape, I — zzzzp! » He motioned across his throat again. «Lord Surt, he say.»

«No, nothing like that. You can make your inspection any time. Sssh! There’s one now.»

«One what?» asked Snögg, a little of the hostility leaving his voice. Shea was creeping towards the wall of his cell. He pounced like a cat and came up with another cockroach in his hand. «What’ll his name be?» he asked Snögg.

Snögg thought, his little troll brain trying to grasp the paradox of a friendly prisoner, his eyes moving suspiciously. «I call him Fiörm, after river. That run fast,» he said at last.

«That where you are from?»

«Aye.»

Heimdall spoke up. «It is said, friend Snögg, that Fiörm has the finest fish in all the nine worlds, and I believe it, for I have seen them.»

The troll looked almost pleased. «True word. Me fish there, early morning. Ho, ho! Me wade — snap! Up come trout. Bite him, flop, flop in face. Me remember big one, chase into shallow.»

Shea said: «You and öku-Thor ought to get together. Fjörm may have the best fish, but he has the biggest fish story in the nine worlds.»

Snögg actually emitted a snicker. «Me know that story. Thor no fisher. He use hook and line. Only trolls know how to fish fair. We use hands, like this.» He bent over the floor, his face fixed in intense concentration then made a sudden sweeping motion, quick as a rattlesnake’s lunge. «Ah!» He cried. «Fish! love him! Come, we race.»

The three cockroaches were tossed into the centre of the circle and scuttled away. Snögg’s Fjörm was the first to cross the line to the troll’s unconcealed delight.

They ran race after race, with halts when one of the roaches escaped and another had to be caught. Snögg’s entry showed a tendency to win altogether at variance with the law of probability. The troll did not notice and would hardly have grasped the fact that Heimdall was using his piercing glance on his own and Shea’s roaches and slowing them up, though Snögg was not allowed to win often enough to rouse his sleeping suspicions. By the time Stegg relieved him in the morning he was over twenty million crowns ahead. Shea stretched out on the floor to sleep with the consciousness of a job well done.

When he awoke, just before Snögg came on duty the next night, he found Heimdall impatient and uneasy, complaining of the delay while Surt’s messenger was riding to demand the sword Head as ransom. Yet it speedily became obvious that the Snögg campaign could not be hurried.

«Don’t you ever get homesick for your river Fjörm?» asked Shea, when the troll had joined them.

«Aye,» replied Snögg. «Often. Like ’um fish.»

«Think you’ll be going back?»

«Will not be soon.»

«Why not?»

Snögg squirmed a little. «Lord Surt him hard master.»

«Oh, he’d let you go. Is that the only reason?»

«N-no. Me like troll girl Elvagevu. Haro! Here, what I do, talk privacy life with prisoner? Stop it. We race.»

Shea recognized this as a good place to stop his questioning, but when Snögg was relieved, he remarked to Heimdall: «That’s a rich bit of luck. I can’t imagine being in love with a female troll, but he evidently is —»

«Man from another world, you observe well. His thoughts were near enough his lips for me to read. This troll-wife, Elvagevu, has refused him because of the size of his nose.»

«Ah! Then we really have something. Now, tonight —»

* * *

When the cockroach races began that night, Heimdall reversed the usual process sufficiently to allow Snögg to lose several races in succession. The long winning streak he later developed was accordingly appreciated, and it was while Snögg was chucking over his victories, snapping his finger joints and bouncing in delight that Shea insinuated softly: «Friend Snögg, you have been good to us. Now, if there’s something we could do for you, we’d be glad to do it. For instance, we might be able to remove the obstacle that prevents your return to Elvagevu.»

Snögg jumped and glared suspiciously. «Not possible,» he said thickly.

Heimdall looked at the ceiling. «Great wonders have been accomplished by prisoners,» he said, «when there is held out to them the hope of release.»

«Lord Surt him very bad man when angry,» Snögg countered, his eyes moving restlessly.

«Aye,» nodded Heimdall, «Yet not Lord Surt’s arm is long enough to reach into the troll country — after one who has gone there to stay with his own troll-wife.»

Snögg cocked his head on one side, so that he looked like some large-beaked bird. «Hard part is,» he countered, «to get beyond Lord Surt’s arm. Too much danger.»

«But,» said Shea, falling into the spirit of the discussion, «if one’s face were altogether changed by the removal of a feature, it might be much easier and simpler. One would not be recognized.»

Snögg caressed his enormous nose. «Too big — You make fun of me!» he snapped with sudden suspicion.