فصل 50

A Little Refreshing Poison in Your Face, Sir?

I REALLY HATE jigsaw puzzles. Did I ever mention that?

I especially hate it when I stare at a piece for hours, wondering where it goes, then somebody else comes along, slaps it into place, and says, There, stupid!

That’s what I felt like when I finally figured out Loki’s plan.

I remembered the maps strewn across Uncle Randolph’s desk when Alex and I had visited. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I’d realized how strange that was at the time. Randolph’s quest to find the Sword of Summer was over. Why would he still be poring over maps? But I hadn’t asked Alex—or myself—about it. I’d been too distracted.

Now I was willing to bet Randolph had been studying topographical maps of New England, comparing them with ancient Norse charts and legends. He’d been ordered to undertake a different search—to find the coordinates of Loki’s cavern in relation to the fortress of Thrym. If anyone could do it, my uncle could. That’s why Loki had kept him alive.

No wonder Loki and Randolph weren’t at the bar. They were waiting for us at the other end of the tunnel.

“We need our goats!” I yelled.

I waded through the crowd until I reached our chariot. I grabbed Otis’s face and pressed my forehead against his.

“Testing,” I whispered. “Is this goat on? Thor, can you hear me?”

“You have beautiful eyes,” Otis told me.

“Thor,” I said, “red alert! We’re on the move. They’re taking us to Loki’s cave. I—I don’t know where that is. Tunnel is on the right-hand wall, angling down. Just—find us! Otis, did he get the message?”

“What message?” Otis asked dreamily.

“Magnus Chase!” the giant king yelled. “Are you ready?”

“Uh, yeah!” I called back. “We just have to ride in the chariot because…traditional wedding reasons.”

The other giants shrugged and nodded as if this made perfect sense to them. Only Thrynga looked suspicious. I feared she was starting to doubt whether the chariot was a rental.

Suddenly the bar felt much too small, with all the giants putting on their coats, straightening their ties, swigging the last of their mead, and trying to figure out their places in the wedding procession.

Samirah and Alex made their way to the chariot.

“What do we do?” Alex hissed.

“I don’t know!” Sam said. “Where’s our backup?”

“We’re going to be in the wrong place,” I said. “How will they find us?”

That was all we had time to say to one another before Thrym came over and took the reins of our goats. He pulled our chariot into the tunnel, his sister by his side, the rest of the giants filing in two by two behind us.

As soon as the last giants were inside the tunnel, the entrance behind us sealed shut.

“Hey, Thrym?” My voice bore an unfortunate resemblance to Mickey Mouse’s, making me wonder what sort of strange gasses were in this tunnel. “You sure it’s a good idea to trust Loki? I mean…wasn’t it his idea to sneak Thor into your grandfather’s wedding? Didn’t he help Thor kill your family?”

The giant king stopped so abruptly Marvin ran into him. I knew I was asking an impolite question, especially on the guy’s wedding day, but I was grasping for anything that might slow down the parade.

Thrym turned, his eyes like wet pink diamonds in the gloom. “Don’t you think I know that, human? Loki is a trickster. It is his nature. But Thor is the one who killed my grandfather, my father, my mother, my entire family!”

“Except for me,” Thrynga muttered. In the darkness, she glowed faintly—a seven-foot-tall apparition of ugliness. I hadn’t noticed that earlier. Maybe it was an ability that earth giants could turn off and on.

Thrym ignored her. “This marriage alliance is Loki’s way of apologizing; don’t you see? He realizes now that the gods were always his enemies. He regrets betraying my grandfather. We will combine our forces, take over Midgard, and then storm the city of the gods itself!”

Behind us, the giants let loose a deafening cheer. “Kill the humans!”

“Shut it!” Thrynga yelled. “We have humans with us!”

The giants murmured. Someone in the back said, “Present company excepted.”

“But, Great King Thrym,” Sam said, “do you really trust Loki?”

Thrym laughed. For such a big guy, he had tiny teeth. “In his cave, Loki is a prisoner. Helpless! He is inviting me there. He gave me the location. Why would he make such a gesture of trust?”

His sister snorted. “Gee, I don’t know, brother. Maybe because he needs an earth giant to tunnel into his place of imprisonment? Because he wants to be free?”

I was kind of wishing Thrynga was on our side, except for the fact that she was a power-hungry giantess bent on revenge and murdering all humans.

“We hold the power,” Thrym insisted. “Loki would not dare betray us. Besides, I am the one who will open his cave! He will be grateful! As long as he honors his part of the bargain, I will gladly let him go free. And the beautiful Samirah…” Thrym leered at Alex. “She is worth the risk.”

Under her veil, Alex squawked like a parrot. The noise was so loud Thrynga almost hit the ceiling.

“What was that?” the giantess demanded. “Is the bride choking?”

“No, no!” Sam patted Alex’s back. “That was just a nervous laugh. Samirah gets uncomfortable when people compliment her.”

Thrym chuckled. “Then she will be uncomfortable often when she is my wife.”

“Oh, Your Majesty!” Sam said. “Truer words have never been spoken!”

“Onward!” Thrym proceeded down the icy path.

I wondered if our delay had bought our backup troops any time. Assuming we even had backup troops. Could Thor still follow our progress through his goats’ eyes and ears? Did he have some way to get a message to Blitz and Hearth and my einherji hallmates from floor nineteen?

The tunnel closed behind us as we descended. I had a horrible vision of Thor in the giants’ barroom, trying to break through the wall with his corkscrew and hand drill.

After a few more minutes, the tunnel began to narrow. Thrym’s progress slowed. I got the feeling that the earth itself was fighting him now, trying to push him back. Maybe the Aesir had placed some sort of magic barrier around Loki’s tomb.

If so, it wasn’t enough. We trudged onward and downward, though the chariot’s axle now ground against the walls. Behind us, the giants walked single file. Next to me, Sam murmured softly—a chant in Arabic that I remembered from her prayers.

A foul smell wafted up from the depths—like sour milk, rotten eggs, and burned meat. I was afraid it was not Thor.

“I can sense him,” Alex whispered, the first thing she’d said in almost an hour. “Oh, no, no, no…”

The tunnel widened suddenly, as if Thrym had finally burst through the earth’s defenses. Our procession filed into the chamber of Loki.

I’d seen the place in my dream, but that didn’t prepare me for the real thing. The cavern was about the size of a tennis court, with a high domed ceiling of cracked stone and broken stalactites, the remnants of which littered the floor. There were no other exits that I could see. The air was stale and sickly sweet with the stink of rot and burned flesh. Around the room, massive stalagmites rose from the floor. In other places, craters of viscous liquid bubbled and steamed, filling the cave with noxious gas. The temperature was about a hundred degrees, and all the earth giants tromping in didn’t help with the heat or the smell.

In the center of the room, just as I’d seen in my dream, Loki lay prone on the floor, his ankles bound together and tied to one stalagmite, his arms spread wide and chained to two others.

Unlike the manifestations I’d seen of him before, the real Loki was neither handsome nor dashing. He wore nothing but a ragged loincloth. His body was emaciated, filthy, and covered with scars. His long stringy hair might once have been reddish brown, but it was now burned and bleached from centuries of being in this toxic cave. And his face—what was left of it—was a half-melted mask of scar tissue.

Coiled around the stalactite at Loki’s head, a massive serpent stared down at the prisoner, its fangs dripping yellow venom.

At Loki’s side knelt a woman in a white hooded robe. She was holding a metal bowl over Loki’s face to catch the poison. The snake was a real producer, though. The venom dripped from its mouth like a partially turned-on showerhead. The woman’s bowl was much too small.

As we watched, venom filled it to the brim and the woman turned to empty it, tossing the contents into one of the boiling pools behind her. She moved quickly, but poison still splattered Loki’s face. He writhed and screamed. The cavern shook. I thought the ceiling would collapse on top of us, but somehow it held. Maybe the gods had fashioned this chamber to endure the shaking, just as they’d fashioned Loki’s bonds never to break, the snake never to run dry, and the woman’s cup never to be big enough.

I wasn’t religious, but the whole scene reminded me of a crucifix in a Catholic church—a man in excruciating pain, his arms outstretched. Of course, Loki was nobody’s idea of a savior. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t sacrificing himself for something noble. He was an evil immortal paying for his crimes. Still, seeing him here in person—broken, filthy, and in agony—I couldn’t help feeling pity. No one deserved this kind of punishment, not even a murderer and a liar.

The woman in white lifted her cup again to shield his face. Loki shook the poison from his eyes. He took a ragged breath and glanced in our direction.

“Welcome, Magnus Chase!” He gave me a hideous grin. “I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t get up.”

“Gods,” I muttered.

“Oh, no; no gods here!” Loki said. “They never visit. They sealed us in and left us. It’s just me and my lovely wife, Sigyn. Say hello, Sigyn.”

The woman in white looked up. Under her hood, her face was so emaciated she might have been a draugr. Her eyes were solid red, her expression blank. Bloodred tears streamed down her leathery face.

“Oh, that’s right.” Loki’s voice was even more acidic than the air. “Sigyn hasn’t spoken in a thousand years—ever since the Aesir, in their infinite wisdom, butchered our sons and abandoned us here to suffer for eternity. But where are my manners? This is a happy occasion! How are you, Thrym, son of Thrym, son of Thrym, son of Thrym?”

The king didn’t look so well. He kept swallowing, like his nachos weren’t staying down. “H-hello, Loki. It’s—it’s actually just three Thryms. And I am ready to seal our alliance with a marriage.”

“Yes, of course! Magnus, you’ve brought the Skofnung Sword.”

It was a statement, not a question. He spoke with such authority, I had to resist the urge to unsling the blade and show it to him.

“We have it,” I said. “First things first. We want to see the hammer.”

Loki laughed—a wet, gurgling sound. “First, let’s make sure the bride is actually the bride. Come here, my dear Samirah. Let me see your face.”

Both girls lurched toward him like they were being pulled with ropes.

My pulse throbbed against the collar of my tux shirt. I should have considered that Loki would check under the girls’ veils. He was, after all, the god of deception. Despite Alex’s assurances that she could resist Loki’s orders, she staggered forward just like Samirah.

I wondered how fast I could get out my sword, how many giants I could kill. I wondered if Otis and Marvin would be any good in a fight. Probably too much to hope for that they were trained in goat fu.

“There we are,” Loki said. “Now let’s have the bride lift her veil, eh? Just to make sure everyone is playing fairly.”

Alex’s hands jerked upward like they were on marionette strings. She began to lift her veil. The cave was silent except for the bubbling of hot springs and the constant drip of poison into Sigyn’s cup.

Alex pushed her veil back over her head, revealing…Samirah’s face.

For a second, I panicked. Had the girls somehow switched places? Then I realized—I don’t know how, maybe something in her eyes—that Alex was still Alex. She’d shape-shifted to look like Sam, but whether or not that would fool Loki…

I curled my fingers around my pendant. The silence was long enough for me to begin mentally composing my will.

“Well…” Loki said at last. “I must admit I’m surprised. You actually followed orders. Good girl! I suppose that means your maid of honor is—”

Sigyn’s cup slipped, sloshing poison into Loki’s face. The god screamed and writhed in his bonds. The girls quickly retreated.

Sigyn righted her bowl. She tried to wipe the venom from Loki’s eyes with her sleeve, but that only made him scream more. Her hem came away smoking and full of holes.

“Stupid woman!” Loki wailed.

For a moment, Sigyn seemed to meet my gaze, though it was hard to be sure with those solid-red eyes. Her expression didn’t change. The tears kept flowing. But I wondered if she had spilled that poison on purpose. I didn’t know why she would. As far as I knew, she’d been kneeling at her husband’s side faithfully for centuries. Still…it seemed an oddly timed mistake.

Thrynga cleared her throat—a beautiful sound, like a chain saw cutting through mud. “You asked about the maid of honor, Lord Loki. She says her name is Prudence.”

Loki cackled, still trying to blink the poison from his eyes. “I’m sure she did. Her real name is Alex Fierro, and I told her not to come today, but no matter! Let us proceed. Thrynga, have you brought the special guest I requested?”

The giantess curled her ink-stained lips. She brought out the chestnut she’d been tossing around earlier.

“Your special guest is a nut?” I asked.

Loki laughed hoarsely. “You could say that. Go on, Thrynga.”

Thrynga stuck her thumbnail into the shell and cracked the nut open. She tossed it to the floor, and something small and dark rolled out—not the meat of a chestnut, but a tiny human form. It grew in size until a stout old man stood before me—his rumpled black tuxedo dusted with plant chaff, his cheek marked with a ghastly burn scar in the shape of a hand.

Whatever optimism I’d been holding on to shed faster than Sif’s golden hair.

“Uncle Randolph.”

“Hello, Magnus,” he said, his face contorted with misery. “Please, my boy…give me the Skofnung blade.”