فصل 38

You Will Never, Ever Guess Blitzen’s Password

JACK HOVERED proudly next to his handiwork.

Can you have handiwork if you don’t have hands?

Stitched into the bag’s side were several new lines of glowing red runic script.

“What does it say?” Alex asked.

“Oh, a few technical runes.” Blitz’s eyes crinkled with satisfaction. “Magic nuts and bolts, terms and conditions, the end-user agreement. But there at the bottom, it says: ‘EMPTYLEATHER, a bag completed by Blitzen, son of Freya. Jack helped.’”

“I wrote that!” Jack said proudly. “I helped!”

“Good job, buddy,” I said. “So…does it work?”

“We’re about to find out!” Blitzen rubbed his hands eagerly. “I’m going to speak the secret word of command. Then this bag will either shrink to an easy carrying size, or—well, I’m sure it will shrink.”

“Rewind to the or,” Alex said. “What else might happen?”

Blitzen shrugged. “Well…there’s a slight chance the bag could expand and cover most of this continent. No, no. I’m sure I got it right. Jack was very careful about backstitching the runes where I told him to.”

“I was supposed to backstitch?” Jack glowed yellow. “Just kidding. Yeah, I backstitched.”

I wasn’t feeling so confident. On the other hand, if the bag expanded to continental size, I wouldn’t live long enough to care.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s the password?”

“Don’t!” Blitzen shrieked.

The bowling bag shuddered. The entire forest trembled. The bag collapsed so fast I got nauseated from the change in perspective. The mountain of leather was gone. Sitting at Blitzen’s feet was a regular-size bowling bag.

“YES!” Blitz picked it up and peeked inside. “There’s a bowling ball inside, but the bag feels completely empty. Jack, we did it!”

They gave each other a high five—or a high just-one, since Jack’s blade had no fingers.

“Hold on,” Alex said. “I mean…good job and all. But did you seriously make the password password?”

“DON’T!” Blitz threw the bowling bag like a grenade into the woods. Instantly it grew back to the size of a mountain, causing a tidal wave of crushed trees and terrified animals. I almost felt sorry for the untrustworthy squirrels.

“I was in a rush!” Blitzen huffed. “I can reset the p—the word of command later on, but that would take more thread and more time. For now, can you please avoid saying…you know, that word?”

He proceeded to say that word. The bag shrank back to small size.

“You did great, man,” I said. “And hey, Jack, nice stitching.”

“Thanks, se?or! I love your sawed-off haircut, too. You don’t look like that Nirvana guy anymore. More like, I dunno…Johnny Rotten? Or a blond Joan Jett?”

Alex cracked up. “How do you even know those people? T.J. told me you were you at the bottom of a river for a thousand years.”

“I was, but I’ve been studying up!”

Alex snickered. “Joan Jett.”

“Just shut up, both of you,” I grumbled. “Who’s ready to go bowling?”

No one was ready to go bowling.

Blitzen crawled into a pup tent and collapsed from exhaustion. Then I made the mistake of letting Jack return to pendant form and I collapsed from exhaustion, feeling like I’d spent all day climbing cliffs.

Alex promised to keep watch. At least I think that’s what she said. She could have announced I’ll invite Loki into camp and kill you all in your sleep! HAHAHAHA! and I still would’ve passed out.

I dreamed of nothing except dolphins happily leaping through a sea of leather.

I woke as the sky was turning from black to charcoal. I insisted Alex get a few hours of shut-eye. By the time all three of us had gotten up, eaten, and broken camp, the sky was a thick blanket of dirty gray.

Almost twenty-four hours lost. Samirah and Hearthstone were still missing. I tried to imagine them safe by the fire in Utgard-Loki’s home, sharing stories and eating well. Instead, I imagined a bunch of giants by the fire, sharing stories about the tasty mortals they’d eaten the night before.

Stop that, I told my brain.

Also, the wedding is tomorrow, said my brain.

Get out of my head.

My brain refused to get out of my head. Inconsiderate brain.

We hiked through the ravine, trying to keep to the direction Tiny had indicated. You’d think we could’ve just followed his footprints, but it was difficult to tell them apart from the natural valleys and canyons.

After about an hour, we spotted our destination. On a massive cliff in the distance rose a boxy warehouse-type structure. The inflatable Godzilla was gone (the daily rental for something like that must have been exorbitant), but the neon sign still blazed: UTGARD LANES. The letters flashed one at a time, then all together, then with sparkles around the edges—just so you didn’t miss the only neon sign on the biggest cliff in Jotunheim.

We trudged up a winding trail that was perfect for colossal donkeys, but not so much for small mortals. The cold wind pushed us around. My feet ached. Thank goodness for Blitzen’s magic bowling bag, because dragging the full-size version up that cliff would have been impossible and also not fun.

Once we reached the top, I realized just how big Utgard Lanes really was. The building itself could have housed most of downtown Boston. The maroon upholstered double doors were studded with brass tacks each as big as your average three-bedroom house. In the grimy windows glowed neon ads for Jotun Juice, Big Small Ale, and Mega Mead. Tethered to posts outside were colossal riding animals: horses, rams, yaks, and, yes, donkeys—each roughly the size of Kilimanjaro.

“No need to fear,” Blitz muttered to himself. “It’s just like a dwarven bar. Only…bigger.”

“So how do we do this?” Alex asked. “Direct frontal assault?”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “Sam and Hearth might be in there, so we play by the rules. Walk in. Ask for guest rights. Try to negotiate.”

“And when that doesn’t work,” Blitz said, “we improvise.”

Alex, being all about change and versatility, said, “I hate this idea.” Then she frowned at me. “Also, you owe me a drink for dreaming about me.”

She marched toward the entrance.

Blitzen raised his eyebrows. “Do I want to ask?”

“No,” I said. “You really don’t.”

Getting past the front doors was no problem. We walked right under them without even having to crouch.

Inside was the largest, most crowded bowling alley I’d ever seen.

To the left, twenty or thirty Statue-of-Liberty-size giants lined the bar, sitting on stools that would have made fine high-rise condominiums. The giants were dressed in neon-colored bowling shirts they must have stolen from a disco-era Salvation Army. Around their waists hung an assortment of knives, axes, and spiked clubs. They laughed and insulted each other and threw back mugs of mead that each could have watered all the crops in California for a year.

It seemed a little early in the morning for mead, but for all I knew these guys had been partying since 1999. That was the song blasting from the overhead speakers, anyway.

To our right stood an arcade where more giants played pinball and Ms. Very Large Pac-Man. In the back of the room, about as far away as, oh, Boston is from New Hampshire, still more giants gathered at the bowling lanes in groups of four or five with matching Day-Glo outfits and suede bowling shoes. A banner across the back wall read: UTGARD BOWLING ULTIMATE TOURNAMENT! WELCOME, U.B.U.T. CONTESTANTS!!

One of the giants threw a ball. Thunder boomed as it rolled down the lane. The floor vibrated, shaking me up and down like a wind-up hoppy toy.

I scanned the place for Tiny in his gray Turkey Bowler shirt. I couldn’t spot him. Tiny should have been easy to see, but from our vantage point on the floor, there were just too many other enormous obstacles in the way.

Then the crowd shifted. Across the room, looking right at me, was a giant I wanted to see even less than Tiny. He sat in a tall leather chair on a dais overlooking the lanes like he was the referee or the MC. His bowling shirt was made of eagle feathers. His slacks were brown polyester. His iron-shod boots looked like they’d been made from recycled World War II destroyers. Clasped around his forearm was a thane’s gold ring studded with bloodstones.

His face was angular and handsome in a cruel sort of way. Straight coal-black hair swept his shoulders. His eyes glittered with amusement and malice. He definitely would’ve made the list for 10 Most Attractive Murderers of Jotunheim. He was about ninety feet taller than the last time I’d seen him, but I recognized him.

“Big Boy,” I said.

I’m not sure how he heard my pipsqueak voice through all the chaos, but he nodded in acknowledgment.

“Magnus Chase!” he called out. “So glad you could make it!”

The music died. At the bar, giants turned to look at us. Big Boy raised his fist as if offering me a microphone. Clasped in his fingers like G.I. Joe figures were Samirah and Hearthstone.