فصل 24

I Liked Hearthstone’s Dad Better as a Cow-Abducting Alien

WHILE WE waited, Hearthstone provided us with dinner.

From his rune bag, he drew this symbol:

It looked like a regular X to me, but Hearthstone explained it was gebo, the rune of gifts. In a flash of gold light, a picnic basket appeared, overflowing with fresh bread, grapes, a wheel of cheese, and several bottles of sparkling water.

“I like gifts,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But won’t the smell draw…uh, unwanted attention?” I pointed to the cave entrance.

“Doubtful,” said Blitzen. “The smell coming out of that cave is more powerful than anything in this basket. But just to be safe, let’s eat everything quickly.”

“I like the way you think,” I said.

Blitzen and I dug in, but Hearth merely settled himself behind the fallen tree trunk and watched us.

“Not eating?” I asked him.

He shook his head. Not hungry, he signed. Also, g-e-b-o makes gifts. Not for the giver. For giver, it must be sacrifice.

“Oh.” I looked down at the wedge of cheese I’d been about to shove in my mouth. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

Hearthstone shrugged, then motioned for us to continue. I didn’t like the idea of him sacrificing so we could eat dinner. Just him being back home, waiting for his father to emerge from a cave, seemed like sacrifice enough. He didn’t need his very own Ramadan rune.

On the other hand, it would’ve been rude to refuse his gift. So, I ate.

As the sun sank, the shadows lengthened. I knew from experience that Alfheim never got fully dark. Like Alaska in summer, the sun would just dip to the horizon and pop back up again. Elves were creatures of light, which was proof that light did not equal good. I’d met plenty of elves (Hearth excepted) who proved that.

The gloom intensified, but not enough for Blitz to take off his anti-sun gear. It must have been a thousand degrees inside that heavy jacket, but he didn’t complain. Once in a while he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed under his netting, wiping the sweat from his neck.

Hearthstone fidgeted with something on his wrist—a bracelet of woven blond hair that I’d never seen before. The color of the locks seemed vaguely familiar….

I tapped his hand for attention. Is that from Inge?

Hearth winced, like this was an awkward subject. On our last visit, Mr. Alderman’s long-suffering house servant Inge had helped us a lot. A hulder, a sort of elf with the tail of a cow, she’d known Hearth since they were both kids. As it turned out, she also had a massive crush on him, even kissing him on the cheek and declaring her love before she fled the chaos of Mr. Alderman’s last party.

We visited her a few days ago, Hearth signed. While scouting. She is living with her family now.

Blitz sighed in exasperation, which, of course, Hearth couldn’t hear.

Inge is a good lady, the dwarf signed. But…He made Vs with both hands and circled them in front of his forehead, like he was pulling things out of his mind. In this context, I imagined the sign meant something like delusional.

Hearthstone frowned. Not fair. She tried to help. Hulder bracelet is good luck.

If you say so, Blitz signed.

Glad she is safe, I signed. Is the bracelet magic?

Hearth started to respond. Then his hands froze. He sniffed the air and gestured DOWN!

The birds had stopped chattering in the trees. The whole forest seemed to be holding its breath.

We crouched lower, our eyes barely peeking over the top of the fallen tree. On my next inhalation, I got such a snootful of dead-frog stench I had to repress a gag.

Just inside the cave entrance, twigs and dry leaves crackled under the weight of something huge.

The hairs on my neck quivered. I wished I had summoned Jack so I would be ready to fight if needed, but Jack wasn’t good in stakeout situations, what with his tendency to glow and sing.

Then, from the doorway of the cave came…Oh, gods of Asgard.

I’d been holding out hope that Alderman had turned into something not so bad. Maybe his cursed form was a Weimaraner puppy, or a chuckwalla iguana. Of course, deep down I’d known the truth all along. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

Hearth had told me horror stories about what happened to previous thieves who dared to take Andvari’s ring. Now I saw that he hadn’t been bluffing.

Emerging from the cave was a beast so hideous I couldn’t comprehend it all at once.

First I focused on the ring glinting on its middle right fore-toe—a tiny band of gold biting into the scaly flesh. It must have hurt badly, throbbing like a tourniquet. The end of the toe had blackened and shriveled.

The monster’s four feet were each the diameter of a trash-can lid. Its short thick legs dragged along a lizard-like body, maybe fifty feet from nose to tail, its spine ridged with spikes bigger than my sword.

The face I had seen in my dreams: glowing green eyes, a snub-nosed snout with slimy nostrils, a horrible maw with rows of triangular teeth. Its head was maned with green quills. The monster’s mouth reminded me of Fenris Wolf’s—too large and expressive for a beast, its lips too human. Worst of all: tufts of white clung to its forehead—the last remnants of Mr. Alderman’s once-impressive hair.

The new, dragonish Alderman pulled himself from his lair, muttering, grinning, snarling, then cackling hysterically—all for no apparent reason.

“No, Mr. Alderman,” he hissed. “You mustn’t leave, sir!”

With a roar of frustration, he belched a column of fire across the forest floor, roasting the trunks of the nearest trees. The heat made my eyebrows crinkle like rice paper.

I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t even look at my friends to see how they were taking this.

Now you may be thinking Magnus, you’ve seen dragons before. What was the big deal?

Okay, sure. I’d seen the occasional dragon. I even fought an elder lindworm once.

But I’d never faced a dragon that used to be someone I knew. I’d never seen a person transformed into something so awful, so smelly, so malevolent, and yet…so obviously correct. This was Mr. Alderman’s true self, his worst qualities given flesh.

That terrified me. Not just the knowledge that this creature could broil us alive, but the idea that anyone could have this much monster inside them. I couldn’t help but wonder…if I’d put on that ring, if the worst thoughts and failings of Magnus Chase had been given a form, what would’ve happened to me?

The dragon took another step, until only the tip of his tail remained in the cave. I held my breath. If the dragon went out to hunt, maybe we could dash into the cave while he was gone, find the whetstone we needed, and get out of Alfheim without a fight. I could’ve really gone for an easy win like that.

The dragon moaned. “So thirsty! The river isn’t far, Mr. Alderman. Just a quick drink, perhaps?”

He chuckled to himself. “Oh, no, Mr. Alderman. Your neighbors are tricky. Posers! Wannabes! They’d love for you to leave your treasure unguarded. Everything you have worked so hard for—your wealth! Yours alone! No, sir. Back you go! Back!”

Hissing and spitting, the dragon retreated into his cave, leaving behind only dead-frog stench and a few smoldering trees.

I still couldn’t move. I counted to fifty, waiting to see if the dragon would reemerge, but tonight’s show seemed to be over.

Finally my muscles began to thaw. I sank back behind our log. My legs shook uncontrollably. I had an overwhelming urge to pee.

“Gods,” I muttered. “Hearthstone, I…”

Words and sign language failed me. How could I commiserate, or even begin to understand what Hearthstone must be feeling?

He set his mouth in a hard line. His eyes glinted with steely determination, a look that reminded me too much of his father.

He made an open hand and tapped his thumb to his chest. I’m fine.

Sometimes you lie to deceive people. Sometimes you lie because you need the lie to become the truth. I guessed Hearth was doing the latter.

“Hey, buddy,” Blitzen whispered as he signed. His voice sounded like it had been crushed under the weight of the dragon. “Magnus and I can figure this out. Let us take the hit.”

The idea of Blitzen and me facing that monster alone didn’t do much for my bladder problems, but I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Maybe we can lure the dragon out and sneak in—”

You’re both wrong, Hearthstone signed. We must kill him. And I must help.