فصل 39

Elvis Has Left the Bowling Bag

“WE CLAIM guest rights!” I yelled. “Utgard-Loki, let our friends go!”

I thought that was pretty brave of me, considering we were facing a heavily armed, badly-dressed Statue of Liberty convention.

The assembled giants laughed.

At the bar, one yelled, “What did you say? Speak up!”

“I said—”

The bartender turned “1999” back on and drowned me out. The giants howled with glee.

I frowned at Blitzen. “You told me Taylor Swift’s songs were dwarf music…does this mean that Prince was a giant?”

“Eh?” Blitzen kept his eyes locked on Hearthstone, who was still trapped and struggling in Utgard-Loki’s fist. “No, kid. This just means that giants have good taste in music. You think Jack could cut our friends out of the giant’s hand?”

“Before Utgard-Loki crushes them? Unlikely.”

Alex wrapped her garrote around her hand, though I didn’t see what good it would do unless she intended to give the giants a good flossing. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m working on it.”

Finally, Utgard-Loki made a cut it gesture with his finger across his throat. (Not my favorite gesture.) The music shut off again. The giants settled down.

“Magnus Chase, we’ve been expecting you!” Utgard-Loki grinned. “As for your friends, they’re not captives. I was merely lifting them up so they could see that you’ve arrived! I’m sure they are delighted!”

Sam did not look delighted. She twisted her shoulders, trying to break free. Her expression suggested she wanted to kill everyone wearing a bowling shirt and perhaps several people who were not.

As for Hearth, I knew how much he hated having his hands pinned down. He couldn’t communicate, couldn’t do magic. The cold fury in his eyes reminded me of his father, Mr. Alderman, and that was not a similarity I enjoyed seeing.

“Put them down now,” I said, “if they’re really not captives.”

“As you wish!” Utgard-Loki set Sam and Hearth on the table, where they stood about as tall as the giant’s mead cup. “We’ve made them quite comfortable while we waited for you to arrive. Tiny mentioned that you would bring his bowling bag no later than this morning. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it!”

The way he phrased that made it seem like this was a hostage exchange. A cold heavy feeling settled in my gut. I wondered what would’ve happened to Sam and Hearth if we’d failed to show up with the bag. We’d kept them waiting, trapped here for twenty-four hours, probably wondering if we were even still alive.

“We’ve got the bag!” I said. “No worries.”

I nudged Blitzen.

“Right!” Blitz stepped forward and raised his creation. “Behold Emptyleather, soon to be famous among bowling bags, completed by Blitzen of Freya! And Jack helped!”

Our old friend Tiny muscled his way through the crowd. Mead stains speckled his gray shirt. His grizzled man bun had unraveled. Just like he’d warned us, compared to the other giants in the room, he actually did look tiny.

“What’d you do to my bag?” he cried. “Did you wash it on regular cycle? It’s minuscule!”

“Like you!” another giant catcalled.

“Shut up, Hugo!” Tiny yelled.

“Not to fear!” Blitzen promised, his voice demonstrating what fear sounded like. “I can return the bag to its normal size! But first, I want assurances from your king that we have guest rights—the three of us, and our two friends on the table.”

Utgard-Loki chuckled. “Well, Tiny, it seems like they did what you asked. They brought your bag.”

Tiny gestured helplessly to his new extra-small carry case. “But…”

“Tiny…” the king said, his tone hardening.

Tiny glared at us. He did not look quite so easygoing now.

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “They have kept their part of their bargain. I vouch for them…in a very, very small way.”

“There you have it!” Utgard-Loki beamed. “You are all officially guests in my bowling alley!” He plucked up Sam and Hearth and set them on the floor. Thankfully, the Skofnung Sword and Stone were still strapped across Sam’s back.

The king turned to address the assembled giants. “My friends, if we entertain these guests in our present size, we’ll get eye-strain trying to avoid stepping on them. We’ll have to serve them food with tweezers and fill their teeny drinking glasses with eyedroppers. That’s no fun! Let’s take this party down a few notches, eh?”

The giants grumbled and muttered, but nobody seemed anxious to contradict the king. Utgard-Loki snapped his fingers. The room spun. My stomach churned from disorientation.

The bowling alley shrank from colossal to merely huge. The giants now averaged about seven feet tall. I could look at them without craning my neck or peering up their cavernous nostrils.

Samirah and Hearthstone hurried over to join us.

You okay? Blitz signed to Hearth.

Where were you? Hearth asked.

Samirah gave me a pained I-will-kill-you-later smile. “I thought you were dead. Also, what happened to your hair?”

“Long story,” I told her.

“Yeah, sorry we’re late,” Alex said. Her apology surprised me more than anything so far today. “What did we miss?”

Sam stared at her like, If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.

I couldn’t imagine that her story was any weirder than ours, but before we could compare notes, Tiny stumbled toward Blitzen. The giant grabbed his bowling bag, which was now just about the right size for him.

He zipped it open and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! Elvis!”

He pulled out his bowling ball and examined it for damage. Airbrushed across the surface was a 1970s Elvis Presley in his white rhinestone jumpsuit. “Oh, did they hurt you, baby?” Tiny kissed the ball and hugged it to his chest. He scowled at Blitzen. “You’re lucky you didn’t harm Elvis, little dwarf.”

“I have no interest in harming Elvis.” Blitzen swiped the now-empty bag out of Tiny’s hands. “But I’m keeping Emptyleather for insurance! You can have it back when we leave here unharmed. If you try anything, I should warn you, the bag only changes sizes with the word of command, and you’ll never guess it on your own!”

“What?” Tiny shrieked. “Is it Presley?”

“No.”

“Is it Graceland?”

“No.”

“Friends, friends!” Utgard-Loki walked toward us with his arms extended. “This is tournament day! We have special guests! Let’s not quibble. Let us feast and compete! Start the music! Drinks for everyone!”

“Little Red Corvette” blasted over the speakers. Most of the giants dispersed, going back to their mead-swilling or their bowling or their Ms. Not-Quite-So-Large Pac-Man. Some of the jotuns—especially those in gray shirts like Tiny’s—looked like they wanted to kill us, guest rights or no, but I took comfort in knowing we had a doomsday option. If worse came to worst, we could always shout password and destroy the entire building in an avalanche of fine dwarven-embroidered leather.

Utgard-Loki patted Tiny on the back. “That’s right! Go have a Jotun Juice!”

Tiny cradled Elvis and headed for the bar, glowering at us over his shoulder.

“Utgard-Loki,” I said, “we need information—”

“Not now, you idiot.” He maintained his grin, but his tone was a desperate snarl. “Look happy. Look like we’re just joking around.”

“What?”

“Good one!” shouted the giant king. “Ha, ha, ha!”

My friends tried to get into the act. “Yeah, ha, ha!” Sam said. Blitzen let out a good dwarvish belly laugh. “Hilarious!” Alex volunteered.

H-A, H-A, Hearth signed.

Utgard-Loki kept smiling at me, but his eyes were as sharp as daggers. “No giant here wants to help you except me,” he said under his breath. “If you don’t prove yourself worthy, you’ll never leave this bowling alley alive.”

“What?” Blitzen hissed. “You promised guest rights. You’re the king!”

“And I’ve used every last bit of my influence and credibility trying to help you! Otherwise you wouldn’t have made it this far alive!”

“Help us?” I said. “By killing our goat?”

“And infiltrating Valhalla?” Sam added. “And possessing an innocent flight instructor?”

“All to dissuade you bungling mortals from falling into Loki’s trap. Which, so far, you’ve managed to do anyway.” He turned his head and shouted for the onlookers, “Well boasted, little mortal! But you will never beat the giants!”

He lowered his voice again. “Not everyone here thinks Loki needs to be stopped. I’ll tell you what you need to know to thwart him, but you’ll have to play along. If you don’t prove your worth and earn the respect of my followers, I’ll be ousted and one of these morons will become the new king. Then we’re all dead.”

Alex scanned the crowd as if trying to decide which moron to garrote first. “Look, Your Feathery Majesty, you could’ve just sent us this important information in a text or a phone call days ago. Why all the cloak-and-dagger and the inflatable Godzilla?”

Utgard-Loki wrinkled his nose at her. “I could not text you, child of Loki, for several reasons. First and foremost, because your father has ways of finding things out. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Alex’s face mottled red, but she said nothing.

“Now,” the king continued, “join the feast. I’ll show you to your table.”

“And after that?” I asked. “How do we prove our worth?”

Utgard-Loki’s eyes gleamed in a way I definitely didn’t like. “You entertain us with impressive feats. You best us in competition. Or you die trying.”