فصل 25

Hearthstone? More Like Hearthrob. Am I Right?

YOU SHOULDN’T make a comment about imminent death and then say “Good night! We’ll talk about it tomorrow!”

But Inge insisted we shouldn’t go after the dwarf until the morning. She pointed out that we needed rest. She brought us extra clothes, food and drink, and a couple of pillows. Then she scurried off, maybe to clean up spills or dust artifact niches or pay Mr. Alderman five gold for the privilege of being his servant.

Hearth didn’t want to talk about the killer dwarf Careful One or his gold. He didn’t want to be consoled about his dead mother or his living father. After a quick gloomy meal, he signed, Need sleep, and promptly collapsed on his mattress.

Just out of spite, I decided to sleep on the rug. Sure, it was creepy, but how often do you get to recline on one hundred percent genuine Pees-in-the-Well fur?

Hearthstone had told me that the sun never set in Alfheim. It just sort of dipped to the horizon and came back up again, like in summer in the arctic. I’d wondered if I’d have trouble sleeping when there was no night. But I needn’t have worried—here in Hearthstone’s windowless room, one flick of the light switch left me in total darkness.

I’d had a long day, what with fighting democratic zombies and then getting dropped out of an airplane into the wealthy suburbs of Elitist-heim. The evil creature’s fur was surprisingly warm and comfortable. Before I knew it, I had drifted off into not-so-peaceful slumber.

Seriously, I don’t know if there’s a Norse god of dreams, but if there is, I’m going to find his house and hack apart his Sleep Number mattress with a battle-ax.

I got treated to a flurry of disturbing images, none of which made much sense. I saw my Uncle Randolph’s ship listing in the storm, heard his daughters screaming from inside the wheelhouse. Sam and Amir—who had no business being there—clung to opposite sides of the deck, trying to reach each other’s hands until a wave crashed over them and swept them out to sea.

The dream shifted. I saw Alex Fierro in her suite in Valhalla, throwing ceramic pots across the atrium. Loki stood in her bedroom, casually adjusting his paisley bow tie in the mirror as pots passed through him and smashed against the wall.

“It’s such a simple request, Alex,” he said. “The alternative will be unpleasant. Do you think because you’re dead you have nothing left to lose? You are very wrong.”

“Get out!” Alex screamed.

Loki turned, but he was no longer a he. The god had changed into a young woman with long red hair and dazzling eyes, an emerald green evening gown accentuating her figure. “Temper, temper, love,” she purred. “Remember where you come from.”

The words reverberated, shaking the scene apart.

I found myself in a cavern of bubbling sulfuric pools and thick stalagmites. The god Loki, wearing only a loincloth, lay lashed to three rock columns—his arms spread wide, his legs bound together, his ankles and wrists tied with glistening dark cords of calcified guts. Coiled around a stalactite above his head was a massive green serpent, jaws open, fangs dripping venom into the god’s eyes. But instead of screaming, Loki was laughing as his face burned. “Soon enough, Magnus!” he called. “Don’t forget your wedding invitation!”

A different scene: a mountainside in Jotunheim in the middle of a blizzard. At the summit stood the god Thor, his red beard and shaggy hair flecked with ice, his eyes blazing. In his thick fur cloak, with his hide clothes dusted with snow, he looked like the Abominable Ginger Snowman. Coming up the slope to kill him were a thousand giants—an army of muscle-bound gargantuans in armor fashioned from slabs of stone, their spears the size of redwood trees.

With his gauntlets, Thor raised his hammer—the mighty Mjolnir. Its head was a slab of iron shaped roughly like a flattened circus tent, blunt on both ends and pointed in the middle. Runic designs swirled across the metal. In the god’s double-fisted grip, Mjolnir’s handle looked so stubby it was almost comical, like he was a child raising a weapon much too heavy for him. The army of giants laughed and jeered.

Then Thor brought down the hammer. At his feet, the side of the mountain exploded. Giants went flying in a million-ton maelstrom of rock and snow, lightning crackling through their ranks, hungry tendrils of energy burning them to ashes.

The chaos subsided. Thor glowered down at the thousand dead enemies now littering the slopes. Then he looked directly at me.

“You think I can do that with a staff, Magnus Chase?” he bellowed. “HURRY UP WITH THAT HAMMER!”

Then, being Thor, he lifted his right leg and farted a thunderclap.

The next morning, Hearthstone shook me awake.

I felt like I’d been bench-pressing Mjolnir all night, but I managed to stumble into the shower, then dress myself in elfish linen and denim. I had to roll up the sleeves and cuffs about sixteen times to make them fit.

I wasn’t sure about leaving Blitzen behind, but Hearthstone decided that our friend would be safer here than where we were going. We set him on the mattress and tucked him in. Then the two of us crept out of the house, thankfully without encountering Mr. Alderman.

Inge had agreed to meet us at the back edge of the estate. We found her waiting where the well-kept lawn met a gnarled line of trees and undergrowth. The sun was on the rise again, turning the sky blood orange. Even with my sunglasses on, my eyeballs were screaming in pain. Stupid beautiful sunrise in stupid Elf World.

“I don’t have long,” Inge fretted. “I bought a ten-minute break from the master.”

That made me angry all over again. I wanted to ask how much it would cost to buy ten minutes of stomping Mr. Alderman with cleats, but I figured I shouldn’t waste Inge’s valuable time.

She pointed to the woods. “Andvari’s lair is in the river. Follow the current downstream to the waterfall. He dwells in the pool at its base.”

“Andvari?” I asked.

She nodded uneasily. “That is his name—the Careful One, in the old language.”

“And this dwarf lives underwater?”

“In the shape of a fish,” said Inge.

“Oh. Naturally.”

Hearthstone signed to Inge: How do you know this?

“I…well, Master Hearthstone, hulder still have some nature magic. We’re not supposed to use it, but—I sensed the dwarf the last time I was in the woods. Mr. Alderman only tolerates this patch of wilderness on his property because…you know, hulder need a forest nearby to survive. And he can always…hire more help in there.”

She said hire. I heard catch.

The ten-minute cleat-stomping session was sounding better and better.

“So this dwarf…” I said, “what’s he doing in Alfheim? Doesn’t the sunlight turn him to stone?”

Inge’s cow tail flicked. “According to the rumors I’ve heard, Andvari is over a thousand years old. He has powerful magic. The sunlight barely affects him. Also, he stays in the darkest depths of the pool. I—I suppose he thought Alfheim was a safe place to hide. His gold has been stolen before, by dwarves, humans, even gods. But who would look for a dwarf and his treasure here?”

Thank you, Inge, Hearth signed.

The hulder blushed. “Just be careful, Master Hearth. Andvari is tricky. His treasure is sure to be hidden and protected by all sorts of enchantments. I’m sorry I can only tell you where to find him, not how to defeat him.”

Hearthstone gave Inge a hug. I was afraid the poor girl’s bonnet might pop off like a bottle cap.

“I—please—good luck!” She dashed off.

I turned to Hearthstone. “Has she been in love with you since you were kids?”

Hearth pointed at me, then circled his finger at the side of his head. You’re crazy.

“Whatever, man,” I said. “I’m just glad you didn’t kiss her. She would’ve passed out.”

Hearthstone gave me an irritated grunt. Come on. Dwarf to rob.