Текст книги "The Sea of Trolls"

Автор книги: Nancy Farmer

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-six
MIMIR’S WELL

At the foot of the tree, where Yggdrassil touched the valley, was a well. It was an unassuming little well at the top of a hill, with a bucket on a rope like the one beside Mother and Father’s house.

“It looks so ordinary,” Jack said.

“‘Always look behind the door before entering a house,’” said Thorgil, quoting a favorite Northman proverb. “Also: ‘Never set foot outside without weapons.’ Would you like one of my knives?”

“This is a spiritualquest,” Jack said with some annoyance. “Why do you always assume there’s an enemy lurking somewhere?”

“Because there always has been,” the shield maiden replied simply. “Anyhow, you have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance before you can drink.”

“I don’t know… it looks too peaceful for that. Maybe all you have to do is walk up there.”

“Nothing is gained without suffering,” said Thorgil.

“I think that’s a Northman trick to squeeze pain out of a perfectly decent situation.”

“It’s solike a thrall to avoid heroism,” sneered Thorgil.

“All heroism means to you is a chance to get beaten up,” Jack snarled back. They were toe-to-toe again, and his hand itched to strike her. He could tell she was itching to strike him. The hum of the bees became almost deafening, and one bumped into Jack’s face. He stepped back. All around them swarmed an eager tornado of bees. Thorgil’s eyes were wide with alarm.

“Sit down,” Jack ordered. She obeyed. “Breathe deeply. Think of peaceful things.”

“I don’t know any peaceful things,” Thorgil said.

“Well, think of playing Dodge the Spear with the louts. Something happy.”

The shield maiden closed her eyes, and by the smile on her face Jack knew she was in a pleasant memory. He himself thought of sitting under a rowan tree with the Bard so long ago. The bees wandered back into the branches of Yggdrassil and continued their incessant gathering of honeydew.

“Why did they attack us?” said Thorgil, opening her eyes.

“They haven’t attacked us—yet. Bees are sensitive to whether someone’s angry or afraid,” Jack said. “My mother never gathered honey when she was upset. We were fighting, and that doesn’t seem to be allowed here.”

Thorgil started to reply when she glanced up at the bees and thought better of it.

All I have to do is walk up that hill,thought Jack, suddenly reluctant to move. That’s easy. I’ve drawn water hundreds of times at home.

“Want me to do it?” Thorgil said sarcastically.

“I’m just thinking.” Jack stood and forced himself to begin. The hill was steeper than it looked. By the time he was halfway up, he had to stop and catch his breath. He went on and on, edging closer to the mighty Tree and the innocent-looking well. He heard Ratatosk the squirrel shrieking vile insults overhead. He heard the myriad worms and beetles chewing on bark. He got to the well.

What if I look over the edge and see Odin’s eye lying at the bottom?he thought. What if it looks up at me?His hands shook, but he forced himself to reach for the bucket. The instant he touched the wood it was as though a great hand reached out and swatted him away like a pesky gnat. Over and over he tumbled down the hill, rolling faster until his fall was broken by his head banging against a rock.

“Told you you’d have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance,” said Thorgil.

“Stop gloating and help me!” cried Jack. He saw blood drip onto the grass from his scalp. Thorgil pressed her hand on the wound until the bleeding stopped. She cut a strip from her new tunic to bind it. “You certainly know how to treat injuries,” Jack said grudgingly.

“Done it hundreds of times. Now, what are you going to sacrifice?”

“I don’t haveanything,” Jack said.

“Of course you do. You could cut off an ear—I’d help you, of course—or smash the fingers of one hand so you’d never play the harp again. That’s a good one for a skald.”

“Chopping yourself to bits is for Northmen,not sane, sensible Saxons!” shouted Jack. “I can’t believe the life force demands such a thing.”

“You have to show you really care!” Thorgil shouted back, ready as always for an argument. “This isn’t some village fair where you win prizes by pitching walnuts at a target. This is Yggdrassil. Not even Odin approached it without sacrifice.”

“Well then, Odin was an idiot.”

“He was not! You take that back!”

“I won’t! Odin is a vicious bully, and so is everyone who believes in him. He makes shield maidens wait on tables in Valhalla.”

“That’s not true!” shrieked Thorgil. The bees had come down again and were swirling around in a loud, maddening swarm. “Odin stands for courage and honor, something a thrallwould never understand!”

“How can you understand it, then? Youwere a thrall until three years ago!” Jack regretted it the instant he said it. Thorgil reeled back as though he’d struck her with an axe. He could see the light of true madness in her eyes. She was a berserker from a line of berserkers, and the fit came upon her whether she willed it or not. “I’m sorry!” Jack cried. �You’re not a thrall! You’re a shield maiden! Odin loves you, and he’d never make you wait on tables!” But he was too late.

“I vow,” said Thorgil, quivering with rage, “that I will kill myself after drawing water from Mimir’s Well. I offer my life up to bring it to Jack so that he may heal Queen Frith and save his sister. I swear this by Yggdrassil, Odin, and the Norns!”

“Don’t do this!” shouted Jack, but Thorgil was already racing up the hill. She pushed ahead, heedless of the wall of bees between her and the top. They roared around her in their thousands, but they didn’t sting. They seemed beside themselves with wild joy.

Jack watched the shield maiden struggle up the steep hill, but she never stopped to rest. She got to the well and reached for the bucket.

The same invisible hand knocked her back. Thorgil rolled over and over down the hill with the bees fleeing from her path. She bumped against the same rock. This time Jack treated the head wound. Thorgil seemed stunned, more than he. She stared blindly at him.

“They wouldn’t accept my sacrifice,” she managed to say at last. “The Norns… Odin… Yggdrassil. They wouldn’t accept my life. Is that… because I was born… a thrall?”

“No, no, of course not,” said Jack, holding her closely as he had once held Lucy after they’d escaped drowning. “Olaf freed you and named you daughter. The Jotuns honor you. No one thinks you’re a thrall because you’re so much, much more. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He stroked her hair and felt her sobs echo in his own body. “I think they rejected your sacrifice because you have to offer something of overwhelming importance. Your life means nothing to you.”

“It’s truly meaningless now,” said Thorgil. “I will kill myself anyway. I have nothing to live for now that Olaf’s gone.”

“You mustn’t do that! He wanted you to live. Iwant you to live.”

“Too late,” Thorgil said. She drew a knife, and Jack did the only thing he could think of. He was no match for her fighting skills or her determination, though he’d become as strong as she was in his time with the Northmen. He pulled the rune of protection from around his neck. At once it became visible.

It was a pendant of heavy gold. On it was a pattern that might have been a sunburst, except that each ray had branches like a budding tree. The tree, Jack realized now, was Yggdrassil.

“So that was what you hid around your neck,” Thorgil said, pausing with the knife in the air. “It burned me like fire.”

“That was because you tried to take it by force. The rune can only be given.” Jack felt empty and sad. It was his only link with the Bard. It had faithfully guarded him through danger and despair, and now it would be gone. He hung it around Thorgil’s neck.

“I suppose it will burn me anyway,” she said. “I’ll suffer greatly, but it’s only what I deserve.”

As Jack watched, the pendant vanished. He felt devastated.

“Mother,” whispered Thorgil. “I can see her in my mind.” She put down the knife.

“Queen Glamdis?”

“No… my real mother. Allyson. I was so cruel to her. I called her names and I never treated her kindly, even when she was crying. Father used to beat her. He called her useless because she bore him no son.”

“She did bear him a son. You had an older brother, and your father killed him.”

“I was to be his replacement, but I failed.” Tears rolled down Thorgil’s face.

“How could you possibly fail by being born a girl?”

“Mother cooked me special meals when Father wasn’t looking. She combed my hair and made me beautiful jackets and boots. I never thanked her.”

“Olaf said she never spoke.”

“She did to me, in Saxon,” said Thorgil. “I made fun of her for using a slave’s speech. That’s when she stopped talking. And then—and then they sacrificed her so she could accompany Father to Valhalla.”

“You know what? I don’t think she went to Valhalla at all. Dragon Tongue said you get to choose your afterlife. I think she went to the Islands of the Blessed with Maeve.”

“I hope so,” said Thorgil. “Oh! I just remembered. One of the last things I said to Olaf was ‘I hate you.’ How could I have done that?” She burst into fresh tears.

“I imagine people told Olaf they hated him at least once a day,” Jack said dryly.

“That’s true,” said Thorgil, brightening up again. But then she remembered other crimes from her past. She seemed to have an endless fund of them. She had smashed Heide’s loom after the wise woman made her a dress. She had jeered at Rune’s voice when he tried to sing a praise-song for her. She had tied together the tails of Slasher, Wolf Bane, Hel Hag, and Shreddie to make them fight. And these were dogs who loved her, practically the only creatures who did.

Jack couldn’t imagine harboring that much malice. The stories poured out like pus from a wound. It seemed to be the first time Thorgil even realized she’d done anything wrong.

“I feel so strange. Like something’s missing.” She picked up the knife again, and Jack was afraid she’d try to stab herself. “You know… I don’t feel like killing myself.”

“That’s good.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not like me. I don’t want to fall in battle, either.” She sat up suddenly, staring wildly.

“ Nowwhat?” said Jack.

“I’ve lost the desire to slash and burn! I don’t want to kill people! I don’t remember how to run berserk! I’m not a shield maiden anymore!” She completely lost control then, rolling on the ground, pulling up handfuls of grass, keening and groaning and sobbing for all she was worth. Jack could only watch her. He didn’t know how to deal with such extreme grief.

After awhile Thorgil tired herself out. She lay, pale and exhausted, on the ruined grass. She’d managed to gouge a few holes out of the earth with her knife as well.

“I think I know what’s happened,” Jack said when she was calm enough to listen. “The one thing I valued most in this world was the rune of protection. Now I’ve given it to you. The one thing you valued most was being a berserker. The rune made you value life rather than death, so you can’t go berserk anymore. You’re still a shield maiden—hear me out,” he said as Thorgil attempted to argue. “You’re like Skakki now. He’s no berserker and never will be. Heide’s good sense runs in his veins. He’s a brave, intelligent warrior, and he’ll live long to protect his family and village.”

“We’re both losers. So what?” said Thorgil.

“We can both drink from Mimir’s Well, that’s what.” Jack pulled her to her feet.

“If I drink, I might become a greater skald than you,” Thorgil said with a hint of her earlier malice.

“Don’t count on it. The well, as far as I can tell, gives you the knowledge you need. Odin asked for mastery and got it. I need poetry to undo the charm I cast on Frith. What you need is anybody’s guess.”

Hand in hand they walked up the hill. This time it didn’t seem steep at all, and when they arrived at the top, they both laid their hands on the bucket—quickly, before they could get swatted away. Nothing happened. Jack sighed in relief. “See? I was correct.”

“The bees are gone,” Thorgil observed. They could still see them dancing in the upper air, gathering the honeydew that fell from Yggdrassil.

“Here goes,” said Jack. He heard the bucket splash far below and pulled it dripping from the depths. A marvelous smell rose from it, of flowers and green fields and pine forests and honey. “It’s the smell of life,” said Jack, smiling.

He drank first. It was sweet, but not the heavy sweetness of mead that drugged you with sleep. Rather, it woke you up. Jack thought it tasted like light captured in water. A dozen memories ran through his mind. He was a young boy watching his father build their house. He was sitting in front of the beehives listening to his mother sing. He was under the rowan tree with the Bard. Every green smell and warm flavor came back to him. Every bright cloud floating over a mountaintop, every fish rising to snap at a fly, every swallow turning in the air appeared before him. It was all wonderful. It was all full of life.

“Did it work?” whispered Thorgil. “Can you heal Queen Frith?”

“I don’t know how yet,” Jack said, “but I will when the time comes.”

Thorgil drank then. The deadly pallor that had come over her in the field below lifted. Her cheeks became rosy. Her eyes, so sad and hopeless, filled with lively interest.

“The birds!” cried Thorgil as she put the bucket down. “They’re actually interesting, in a featherbrained way. And the flowers– lookat the flowers!—they’re red and blue and yellow and pink. I never saw such colors. And the light under the Tree. It’s moving all the time, like the waves of the sea.” Thorgil wandered off down the hill, exclaiming at each new discovery. She was lost in the wonder and beauty of the little valley.

Jack took out the bottle with the poppy on the side. Its contents had been used up, and Fonn had washed it for him. Jack dipped it into the bucket.

No,said a voice full of shadows.

Jack saw the young Norn standing next to the Tree. She held out her hand for the bottle. It’s for Rune,Jack said in his mind. He’s too old to come here, but he’s earned the right to drink. He sacrificed his voice in the service of his people. And he gave his greatest poem to me.

The Norn was silent. She moved closer to the Tree, and presently, Jack couldn’t see her at all in the deep shadows and fissures in the bark.

“What are you looking at?” called Thorgil.

“The capercaillie,” said Jack, laughing, for the ridiculous bird had marched out of the same shadows with her speckled chicks crowding and hopping behind. She raised her eyebrows at him and strode on. Jack poured the rest of the contents of the bucket onto Yggdrassil’s roots. “All trees need water, even this One,” he said.

He and Thorgil walked through the forest. A golden light hovered over the trees, for sunset was near, and blue shade flowed out of the surrounding hills. They walked until dark, with Thorgil translating the evening chorus of birds. She was right, Jack decided. The birds wereawfully featherbrained.

As the boy and girl passed between two beech trees, they came out into a darkened hall surrounded by walls of ice. The braziers of coals were almost out, and the vast white curtains over the windows trembled under the blast of mountain winds. The Mountain Queen herself was snoring on her throne with her mouth open, so you could see her fangs. The fruit and bread in every one of the bowls on the table had turned to slime and dust.

Chapter Thirty-seven
THE QUEEN’S GIFTS

“Skkkrrrnnk—wha? What was that?” said Queen Glamdis as she came awake.

“Great Queen, we have returned,” said Jack.

“I’ve told you not to use that ‘Great Queen’ stuff on me,” Glamdis said crossly. “Call me Mother.”

“Yes, Mother,” said both Jack and Thorgil.

“Well? Was it successful? Did you find Mimir’s Well?”

“Yes, Great—er, Mother,” said Jack.

“Good. I never know what the Norns are going to do. Sometimes they send people into a dark wood to wander.”

“Why do you entertain the Norns?” Thorgil asked. “It can’t be interesting, watching them play chess.”

“You’d be surprised,” the Mountain Queen said. “I learn all sorts of things about what’s going to happen. Most of it’s sad, of course. People die. Whole islands disappear under the sea. I feel it gives me a certain control over the future. I saw Olaf’s death long before it happened.”

“You did?” Thorgil’s eyes were wide.

“Such as he could never live to old age.” The Mountain Queen sighed. “He was too grand and too impossibly pigheaded. Well! I see I can’t offer you any food here. Why don’t we go to the harem, and I’ll ask the louts to fix us some snacks.”

They walked down the long room, Queen Glamdis leading and Jack and Thorgil following behind. The golden chess pieces were strewn across the playing board. “Why do you serve the Norns food when they don’t seem to eat?” Jack asked, eyeing the bowls full of dust.

“They like to wither things,” Glamdis replied. “Turning bread to mold and fruit to slime is as good as a feast to them. I gave up trying to understand Norns years ago.”

The meal in the harem was one of the best memories Jack took away from Jotunheim. Bolthorn presided over the festivities, and Golden Bristles and Bold Heart joined in. Two louts sang a wandering, tuneless kind of song while others danced the Jotunheim Reel. It was loud and cheerful, with much stamping. Fonn directed a play about the retreat from Utgard across the breaking ice.

They ate surprisingly good pastries, meat pies, and flummery—the best kind, with nutmeg and cream. Thorgil went into raptures over each new dish. “I had no idea things could taste so good!” she exclaimed. “This is all so delicious!”

“Is she all right?” whispered Queen Glamdis to Jack.

“Just crazy in a new way,” Jack whispered back.

They left early in the morning, as dawn reddened the hall of the Mountain Queen. Glamdis and her family accompanied them down the long tunnels to the bottom of the mountain. For a people who had haunted Jack’s nightmares so long, he was surprisingly sad to leave them. “I can’t believe one of you bit off Tree Foot’s leg,” he said as they came out to the cold, windswept courtyard at the beginning of the U-shaped valley.

“Believe it,” said Fonn. “Humans and trolls have been at war for a long time. We have a truce for the moment, to honor Olaf One-Brow, but we battle for the same lands. When winter ruled the earth, so did we. Now summer comes on and we are weakened. But we will never give up.”

“And neither will we,” Thorgil cried. She was dressed in wolverine fur with smart little boots and a new sword at her belt. “To refuse battle would do neither of us honor.”

“We will meet at Ragnarok,” said Fonn gravely.

“At Ragnarok!” shrilled Thorgil.

Bold Heart, who was perched on Jack’s shoulder, cawed and shook his head.

“I give you these parting gifts,” said the Mountain Queen, signaling to a young lout. He brought out cloaks of a material Jack couldn’t identify. They shimmered like the light off a glacier, and they smelled sharp and sweet at the same time. “They’re made of silk we harvest from the spiders that live in our forests,” the queen said.

How do you get silk from a spider?thought Jack, who only understood how to shear sheep.

“You may have noticed the curtains in our halls. They’re of the same substance, strong enough to withstand the heaviest storm and light enough to wear comfortably. This silk has the property of taking on the colors around it. These cloaks will hide you from the dragon.” Glamdis held up the garments. They were long and roomy. The hoods would easily conceal a face. Jack saw their color shift from ice white to the dark blue of the Mountain Queen’s dress.

“Thank you, Great Queen—I mean, Mother,” said Jack, bowing. “This is indeed generous.”

“I’m deeply honored,” said Thorgil, bowing as well.

“Don’t go near the rocks on either side of the valley. Walk next to the river. Travel by dark. Hide by day. When you reach the forest, go north around the field of flowers. The elk have made trails. You should come out on the fjord and meet your friends.”

Jack was dressed in his marten-fur coat and the cowskin boots that gripped the ice. He carried Olaf’s sun stone for Skakki and the bottle of song-mead from Mimir’s Well for Rune in a bag around his neck. Thorgil wore the little silver hammer she’d been given by Olaf. Both of them had sacks of provisions and various weapons.

Last of all, the queen gestured to Bolthorn, who came out with Jack’s staff wrapped in cloth. “You take it,” Bolthorn said, holding it out as though it were a poisonous snake.

“I thought about casting it into the chasm beneath my window,” said the queen. “Then I thought about keeping it from you. It’s the staff of a fire wizard. I last saw one when Dragon Tongue visited, and I can’t tell you how much trouble hecaused. Still, it would be unworthy to steal from a guest. You may take it home with you, but be warned. If you ever return with thatin your possession, you’ll find out right away whether we trolls bite off legs.” She grinned, showing her dainty—but businesslike—fangs.

“I promise,” said Jack, bowing again. He hefted the staff. It had turned black, but it wasn’t burned. It had called out flame from the heart of Jotunheim and, in the process, had gone beyond fire to something harder and stronger. Jack felt a faint thrumming in the wood when he put his hand on it.

They said farewell then, thanking the Jotuns again for their generosity. Jack hugged Golden Bristles as best he could, given his short arms and the boar’s huge neck. “Good-bye, piggy,” he said. “I wish you could come along, but you wouldn’t find much welcome in Middle Earth.” The troll-boar whuffled and nuzzled Jack’s hair.

Then Jack, Thorgil, and Bold Heart set off down the U-shaped valley to the distant forest. For a while they could hear Forath singing a farewell whale-song. I wish she wouldn’t do that,Jack thought. It makes me feel so dreadfully sad.They turned after a mile and looked back. The ice mountain seemed unmarked. They couldn’t make out any windows, turrets, walkways, or doors. It was as though the Jotuns had folded themselves inside and all the glaciers and ice crags were deserted.

“This cloak smells weird,” said Thorgil. They were tucked into a deep side channel of the river. They had to lie on a sandbar crusted with ice. The wind scoured the ground just above their heads, but they were hidden from the dragon. Jack had shared out meat pies and cider.

“It’s made of spider silk. Maybe spiders smell weird. I’ve never been close enough to tell,” he said. Bold Heart was huddled against him, pecking meat shreds from Jack’s hand.

“I keep expecting the cloth to be sticky.”

“Just don’t walk through a swarm of flies.”

“This is so boring,” Thorgil fumed. “Why can’t we go out in daylight if the cloaks can hide us?”

“The queen had some reason for telling us to lie low.”

“The dragon can’t see us. There’s nothing else out here. You can see for miles.” Thorgil balled up her cloak and jammed it into the sand.

The dragon had been visible for some time as a puff of smoke by day and a red fire at night. Occasionally, she spread her wings and floated over the valley, looking for prey. So far she hadn’t got anything.

I wonder if she’s laid more eggs,Jack thought. He felt vaguely guilty about killing her brood, but they hadn’t had a choice.

“I’m bored,” said Thorgil. The new Thorgil was almost as annoying as the old one. She no longer fell into mindless rages—though she was perfectly capable of getting angry—but she was filled with a thirst for new experiences. She had missed so much in her former life that every rock and clump of moss enthralled her. She wanted more and more and more entertainment, to make up for lost time. Sitting with her for hours was sheer torture.

“Why can’t we find out whether the dragon can see us?” she complained. “We could always run back here.”

“Because,” Jack said for the tenth time that day, “once the dragon notices us, she isn’t going to give up. She’ll check every nook and cranny.”

“Bold Heart could talk to her. Tell her we taste bad or something.”

“She’s not going to believe him,” Jack said. Bold Heart had revealed—and Thorgil had translated—that he’d told the dragon she had a rival at the other end of the valley. He’d worked her into such a rage, she’d sailed off to do battle. Then he’d incited the green dragonlet to kill his sisters.

“I suppose not,” grumbled Thorgil. She felt for the rune at her neck.

Jack watched her with a sick feeling of loss. “You can’t take it off, you know,” he said. “Once removed it can never be returned.”

“You’ve told me that about a thousand times. I’m never going to take it off. It makes me feel safe.”

I know,thought Jack sadly. He smoothed the feathers on Bold Heart’s head. The crow nibbled his fingers. The wind whistled and howled, and from a great distance they heard the dragon scream. She did this regularly, whether from rage or merely for exercise Jack didn’t know. It was when she was silent that they had to worry.

“I’m bored. Tell me a story,” said Thorgil.

Jack had gone through his entire collection in the days they’d spent crossing the valley. He’d told her all of Father’s gory martyrdom tales and all of the Bard’s sagas and even all of Lucy’s bedtime stories. He’d described every inch of the farm and every rock on the beach back home. He was almost reduced to introducing her to the black-faced sheep. He stood up and looked over the edge of the embankment.

The forest wasn’t that far away. The dragon had sounded as though she was flying away from them, perhaps back to her nest. He shaded his eyes. He thought he saw a puff of smoke from the distant cliff.

“We might make it,” he said.

“What! Really?” cried Thorgil, popping up to look around the valley.

“That’s where Olaf’s funeral pyre was, and there’s the trail into the forest,” Jack said. “It should take only a couple of hours. I don’t know. Maybe we should wait for dusk.”

But Thorgil had already shouldered her bags and wrapped herself up in the cloak. She was out before he could stop her.

“Stop! Don’t you ever think anything through?” Jack hurried after her while struggling with his own carrying bags and cloak. Bold Heart sailed overhead.

Jack had to admit it was a lot nicer traveling by day. They kept bumping into things in the dark or falling on patches of ice. The sunlight was exhilarating, and even the wind wasn’t bad in their warm clothes. The Jotuns had certainly been generous. Jack wondered for the first time why they had clothes that fit human children. No,he thought. They couldn’t have.But he didn’t really know. There was a war between Jotunheim and Middle Earth. Children might not be safer here than they’d been in Gizur’s village.

“Isn’t this fine?” Thorgil chirruped. Jack could hardly see her under the silk cloak. She looked as clear as a soap bubble. He supposed he was equally hidden, except for his hand gripping the ash wood staff. Jack was of two minds about the staff. He could keep it at the ready. Or he could sling it on his back and depend on stealth. He slung it onto his back under the cloak. He wasn’t sure he could raise fire in a hurry, and anyhow, what difference did fire make to a dragon?

Jack looked back occasionally to see whether the dragon had moved. A thin column of smoke put his fears to rest.

“Those boulders are such interesting colors,” Thorgil said. “I used to think they were all gray, but they aren’t. Some are like oyster shells and others are like fog and still others are speckled like a robin’s egg. And the shadows! You’d think they were the same, but some are dark and others are bright and—oh, look at that one!—it’s purple.”

Save me from Thorgil’s enthusiasm,Jack silently prayed. He thought he’d never miss her rages and sulks. At least when she was sulking she was quiet.

The forest drew ever nearer. The dragon seemed content to roost. Things might actually work out,Jack thought. They were still walking along the river, and to their right, at the edge of the valley where it went up into the surrounding hills, was a huge cream-colored boulder. Around it was a cluster of cream-colored rocks.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Thorgil warbled. “It’s like a mother rock with her babies.”

Wonderful,thought Jack. Now we’re going to stop and pet the baby rocks.A long scream echoed over the valley. “Run, Thorgil! The dragon’s up!” yelled Jack. She reacted instantly. She might sound featherbrained, but the shield maiden of old was still underneath.

“Hide in the rocks,” Thorgil cried. “We’re not going to make the trees.”

“Wait!” Jack shouted, trying to keep up with her. “The queen told us to stay away from them.”

“No time!” She reached the rocks first and crouched down. The cloak instantly took on a cream color. Thorgil was even the right size, though a little lumpier than the others. Jack threw himself down beside her. They both fought to regain their breath as the dragon—to go by her cries—zigzagged back and forth over the valley.

“She can’t see us. I toldyou she couldn’t see us,” whispered Thorgil.

“I hope she leaves soon. This is uncomfortable,” said Jack.

“Lean against the rocks…. I say!”

“What?”

“This one’s soft,” said Thorgil.

Jack felt the surface by his side. It wassoft. The dragon’s cries retreated up the valley toward the ice mountain. He opened the cloak slightly to look. The rocks were all the same size, which was odd in itself, and the odor they gave off was so intense, it made him queasy. “This place smells like—”

The giant boulder suddenly stood up on eight giant legs and began frantically gathering the little rocks into a silk bag.