فصل 44

Junior Wins a Bag of Tears

SAM PICKED THAT MOMENT TO SHOW UP.

She shouldered through the crowd, her headscarf pulled low over her face. Her jacket was dusted with ash, as if she’d spent the night in a chimney.

I wanted to yell at her for being gone so long, but my anger evaporated when I noticed her black eye and swollen lip.

“What happened?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

“Little scuffle,” she said. “No worries. Let’s watch the judging.”

Spectators gathered around two tables on the sideline, where Junior’s and Blitzen’s crafts were on display. Blitzen stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking confident despite his snapped suspenders, his grease-strained shirt, and his sweat-soaked porkpie hat.

Junior’s face was a bloody mess. He could barely hold himself up on his walker. The murderous gleam in his eyes made him look like a serial killer exhausted after a hard day’s work.

Nabbi and the other judges circled the tables, inspecting the crafted items and jotting notes on their clipboards.

At last Nabbi faced the audience. He arched his wriggly eyebrows and tried for a smile.

“Well, then!” he said. “Thank you all for attending this contest, sponsored by Nabbi’s Tavern, famous among taverns, built by Nabbi and home to Nabbi’s Stout, the only mead you’ll ever need. Now our contestants will tell us about their first items. Blitzen, son of Freya!”

Blitz gestured to his metal sculpture. “It’s a duck.”

Nabbi blinked. “And…what does it do?”

“When I press its back…” Blitzen did so. The duck swelled to three times its size, like a frightened pufferfish. “It turns into a larger duck.”

The second judge scratched his beard. “That’s it?”

“Well, yes,” Blitz said. “I call it the Expando-Duck. It’s perfect if you need a small metal duck. Or a larger metal duck.”

The third judge turned to his colleagues. “Garden knickknack, perhaps? Conversation piece? Decoy?”

Nabbi coughed. “Yes, thank you, Blitzen. And now you, Eitri Junior, son of Edna. What is your first creation?”

Junior wiped the blood out of his eyes. He held up his flattened iron cylinder, with several springs and latches dangling from it. “This is a self-guiding troll-seeking missile! If it were undamaged, it could destroy any troll at a distance of half a mile. And it’s reusable!”

The crowd murmured appreciatively.

“Um, but does it work?” asked the second judge.

“No!” Junior said. “It was ruined on the final hammer stroke. But if it did work—”

“But it doesn’t,” observed the third judge. “So what is it at the moment?”

“It’s a useless metal cylinder!” Junior snarled. “Which isn’t my fault!”

The judges conferred and scribbled some notes.

“So, in the first round,” Nabbi summed up, “we have an expandable duck versus a useless metal cylinder. Our contestants are running very close indeed. Blitzen, what is your second item?”

Blitzen proudly held up his chain mail neckware. “The bulletproof tie!”

The judges lowered their clipboards in perfect synchronicity.

“What?” asked Nabbi.

“Oh, come now!” Blitz turned to the audience. “How many of you have been in the embarrassing situation of wearing a bulletproof vest without a matching bulletproof tie?”

In the back of the crowd, one dwarf raised his hand.

“Exactly!” Blitzen said. “Not only is this accessory fashionable, but it will stop anything up to a 30-06 round. It can also be worn as a cravat.”

The judges frowned and took notes, but a few audience members seemed impressed. They examined their shirts, maybe thinking how underdressed they felt without a chain mail neckpiece.

“Junior?” asked Nabbi. “What is your second work of craftsmanship?”

“The Goblet of Infinity!” Junior gestured to a misshapen hunk of iron. “It holds a limitless amount of any liquid—great for road trips through waterless wastelands.”

“Uh…” Nabbi pointed with his pen. “It looks a bit crushed.”

“Stupid horsefly again!” Junior protested. “It bit me right between the eyes! Not my fault if an insect turned my brilliant invention into a slag heap.”

“Slag heap,” Nabbi repeated, jotting on his clipboard. “And Blitzen, your final item?”

Blitzen held up a glittering length of woven metal fabric. “The chain mail vest! For use with a three-piece suit of chain mail. Or, if you want to dress it down, you can wear it with jeans and a nice shirt.”

And a shield, Hearthstone offered.

“Yes, and a shield,” Blitzen said.

The third judge leaned forward, squinting. “I suppose it would offer some minor protection. If you were stabbed in the back at a disco, for instance.”

The second judge jotted something down. “Does it have any magic abilities?”

“Well, no,” Blitz said. “But it’s reversible: silver on the outside, gold on the inside. Depending on what jewelry you’re wearing, or what color armor—”

“I see.” Nabbi made a note on his clipboard and turned to Junior. “And your final item, sir?”

Junior’s fists trembled with rage. “This is unfair! I have never lost a contest. All of you know my skills. This meddler, this poseur Blitzen has somehow managed to ruin my—”

“Eitri Junior, son of Edna,” interrupted Nabbi, “what is your third item?”

He waved impatiently at the furnace. “My third item is in there! It doesn’t matter what it was, because it’s now boiling sludge!”

The judges circled up and conferred. The crowd shifted restlessly.

Nabbi faced the audience. “Judging has been difficult. We have weighed the merits of Junior’s boiling sludge, slag heap, and useless metal cylinder against the chain mail vest, bulletproof tie, and Expando-Duck. It was a close call. However, we judge the winner of this contest to be Blitzen, son of Freya!”

Spectators applauded. Some gasped in disbelief. A female dwarf in a nurse’s outfit, possibly Bambi, famous among dwarf nurses, passed out cold.

Hearthstone jumped up and down and made the ends of his scarf do the wave. I looked for Sam, but she was hanging back at the edges of the crowd.

Junior scowled at his fists as if deciding whether to hit himself. “Fine,” he growled. “Take my head! I don’t want to live in a world where Blitzen wins crafting contests!”

“Junior, I don’t want to kill you,” Blitzen said. Despite his win, he didn’t sound proud or gloating. He looked tired, maybe even sad.

Junior blinked. “You—you don’t?”

“No. Just give me the earrings and the rope as you promised. Oh, and a public admission that my father was right about Gleipnir all along. You should have replaced it centuries ago.”

“Never!” Junior shrieked. “You impugn my father’s reputation! I cannot—”

“Okay, I’ll get my ax,” Blitzen said in a resigned tone. “I’m afraid the blade is a little dull….”

Junior gulped. He looked longingly at the bulletproof necktie. “Very well. Perhaps…perhaps Bil? had a point. The rope needed replacement.”

“And you were wrong to tarnish his reputation.”

The old dwarf’s facial muscles convulsed, but he managed to get out the words. “And I was…wrong. Yes.”

Blitzen gazed up into the gloom, whispering something under his breath. I wasn’t a good lip-reader, but I was pretty sure he said, I love you, Dad. Good-bye.

He refocused on Junior. “Now, about the items you promised…”

Junior snapped his fingers. One of his bodyguards wobbled over, his head newly bandaged from his recent encounter with a hammer. He handed Blitzen a small velvet box.

“Earrings for your mother,” Junior said.

Blitz opened the box. Inside were two tiny cats made from gold filigree like Brisingamen. As I watched, the cats stretched, blinking their emerald eyes and flicking their diamond tails.

Blitz snapped the box shut. “Adequate. And the rope?”

The bodyguard tossed him a ball of silk kite string.

“You’re joking,” I said. “That’s supposed to bind Fenris Wolf?”

Junior glowered at me. “Boy, your ignorance is breathtaking. Gleipnir was just as thin and light, but its paradox ingredients gave it great strength. This rope is the same, only better!”

“Paradox ingredients?”

Blitz held up the end of the rope and whistled appreciatively. “He means things that aren’t supposed to exist. Paradox ingredients are very difficult to craft with, very dangerous. Gleipnir contained the footfall of a cat, the spittle of a bird, the breath of a fish, the beard of a woman.”

“Dunno if that last one is a paradox,” I said. “Crazy Alice in Chinatown has a pretty good beard.”

Junior huffed. “The point is, this rope is even better! I call it Andskoti, the Adversary. It is woven with the most powerful paradoxes in the Nine Worlds—Wi-Fi with no lag, a politician’s sincerity, a printer that prints, healthy deep-fried food, and an interesting grammar lecture!”

“Okay, yeah,” I admitted. “Those things don’t exist.”

Blitz stuffed the rope in his backpack. He took out his pouch of tears and handed it to the old dwarf. “Thank you, Junior. I consider our bargain complete, but I would ask one more thing. Where is the island of Fenris Wolf?”

Junior hefted his payment. “If I could tell you, Blitzen, I would. I’d be happy to see you ripped apart by the Wolf like your father was! Alas, I don’t know.”

“But—”

“Yes, I said I checked on the rope from time to time. I lied! The truth is, very few gods or dwarves know where the Wolf’s island appears. Most of them are sworn to secrecy. How your father found the place, I really don’t know, but if you want to find it, the best person to ask is Thor. He knows, and he has a big mouth.”

“Thor,” I said. “Where do we find Thor?”

“I have no idea,” Junior admitted.

Hearthstone signed, Sam might. She knows a lot about the gods.

“Yeah.” I turned. “Sam, get over here! Why are you lurking?”

The crowd parted around her.

As soon as Junior saw her, he made a strangled squawk. “You! It was you!”

Sam tried to cover her busted lip. “Sorry? Have we met?”

“Oh, don’t play innocent with me.” Junior scooted forward on his walker, his flushed scalp turning his gray hair pink. “I’ve seen shape-shifters before. That scarf is the same color as the horsefly’s wings. And that black eye is from when I swatted you! You’re in league with Blitzen! Friends, colleagues, honest dwarves—kill these cheaters!”

I was proud that the four of us responded as a team. In perfect unison, like a well-oiled combat machine, we turned and ran for our lives.