Upon the day of her sixteenth birthday, Isolf was presented to the jotun as an offering, along with three sheep, five geese, some chickens, two goats, and a cow.
"Will I be killed and eaten outright?" she asked her father the night before. "Or will I be held captive?"
"Skrymir is an old friend to this clan," said her father, Alborg. "You are my firstborn child, the most precious thing I can think of, so he won't destroy such a gift. Sixteen years ago I promised him my firstborn in exchange for a drink of his honey mead. Because of that drink and my promise, I was given the secret of making steel. Our people turned back the savage Utlanders, and we have lived in peace ever since. But a promise is a promise, especially when you make it to a jotun. A jotun's gift always has a price, and you, my precious daughter, are the price I must pay for the freedom of our people."
Isolf took a firm grip on the cow's halter and knocked on the great door leading into the jotun's mountain hall. The earth quivered as heavy steps approached, then the door abruptly fell open with a rusty grating and grumbling.
"Who are you? What do you want?" rumbled the mighty voice of the jotun.
Isolf stepped over the threshold of the jotun's cave, making the appropriate protective sign, and gazed up into the craggy countenance of the jotun, lurking far above in the shadows of the cave. His eyes blazed down at her, casting a faint smoldering sort of light over his massive form and unkempt mane of shaggy beard and hair.
"My name is Isolf, firstborn daughter of the wizard Alborg. Sixteen years ago you gave him the gift of steel, and he promised to give you his firstborn child."
The great and terrible jotun chuckled a dire chuckle.
"Firstborn children! Beautiful maids! Livestock cluttering my doorstep! What a nuisance you mortals are!"
"Well, you've given us so much, we want to give something in return. Do you mind if we come in?" She gathered up a goose under one arm, a bundle of bound chickens under the other.
"Are you not afraid of the mighty jotun, mortal maid?"
"Not in particular," said Isolf.
"Indeed. Men nowadays fear nothing. Some even make a mock of the jotuns, with masks and costumes." The jotun sighed, a gusty sound made hollow with ancient wisdom and intolerable burdens. "Come in, then. I must make a memorandum about making rash promises with mortals. Sometimes they actually stick to them."
Skrymir diminished himself to a size more appropriate. Standing before Isolf was a craggy-shouldered old man who reminded her of her own grandfather, with white hair and beard streaming over his shoulders in a forgotten tangle.
"Many have not forgotten your gifts," said Isolf, glancing about the dust and gloom of the jotun's hall. "If not for the Elder Race, men would still be wearing skins and throwing rocks. With jotun knowledge we have tamed the metals of the earth, learned to bake and brew and weave and make cheese and husband the earth and its creatures. It is true, many have forgotten, and the Elder Race is derided. I think that is the cause for the rising Chaos around us. Fields are no longer fertile. Our flocks are not as plentiful. Our walls and houses no longer stand as firm and true. If I can do anything to drive back the Chaos by coming here as an offering, then here am I to serve."
The great Skrymir chuckled again. For several centuries, he had watched over the New People, benignly assisting their progress from skin-clad, warfaring scraelings to civilized, warfaring vikings. Their busy antics amused him, as might a disturbed anthill, with their trials, tragedies, and heroic endeavors. Even their epithet for him-jotun-he found amusing. In stature he was not so much a giant to them; their scalds and legends and folktales served to increase their expectations to a fearful extent, so when they came to him begging favors, as was their wont, he shifted his shape to a larger one, so as not to disappoint them. But of late, their respect was sadly lacking. So many of them came as thieves and tricksters, instead of earnest supplicants for wisdom.
Skrymir gazed down upon the slight figure of Isolf, clad in a blue cloak for health and protection, with a red hood for courage.
"What can you do against the rising tide of Chaos? What use have I for such a tiny thing as you? My needs are not human needs. Everything I require is here." He let a handful of dust sift through his fingers. "I have lived here alone since the dawn of time, and I don't need any looking after by a human creature."
"And no one seems to do much cleaning up," said Isolf, darting a shocked glance around the great hall in the mountain. "My mother and the wise women of the clan taught me that disorder is an affront to nature. It is my duty to put nature back into harmony wherever I find it disordered, so I shall stay where I may do some good against Chaos."
"I shall ponder the matter," said Skrymir. "After I ponder the rise of Chaos and the future of the New People. Wisdom makes thinking such an ordeal." He settled himself in his chair in a pondering pose, with his chin resting upon his fist and his eyes drawn nearly shut in a baggy scowl.
Lost in his weighty ponderings, Skrymir either forgot or simply did not notice the presence of Isolf for at least a fortnight. In that time, she shoveled away the heaps of ash from the hearth, she discovered the scullery under layers of soot and grease, and she discovered smooth and shining floors beneath years of dirt and rubble. Gradually Isolf spread the sphere of her power throughout the underground halls of Skrymir until order prevailed, pushing back the boundaries of encroaching Chaos, rendering the dusty, cluttered halls of Skrymir pleasant and serene.
When Skrymir returned from his contemplation, he remembered the small female creature Alborg had sent him.
"All your work is splendid and orderly," he greeted her. "But still you are not happy. You are lonely here." With one crabbed finger he lifted a telltale tear from her cheek.
Isolf shook her head. "I was promised, and nothing binds like a promise freely given and a vow freely taken." Skrymir beckoned her to follow him to the brewery, the only room to which she was denied access. He illumined it with a gesture of his hand. Another gesture summoned an elegant cushioned seat for Isolf, drawn from nothing but the dust on the floor and Skrymir's imagination.
"You are lonely." There was no denying the truth to one who knew all things as Skrymir knew, from the thoughts in her head to the doings of her father far away in Holm. Skrymir never asked questions that required an answer. A question was a signal for silence and deep scouring thought.
"So I have decided to create a companion for you and all lonely persons of mortalkind. It has been long since any new creatures were created on the face of the earth. All the greater spirits have been taken for the bears and wolves and horses and a host of other fantastical creatures who would astonish you if you saw them. Fortunately they live far away from here, in a hot and dry place, so you'll never see an elephant or a lion or a gazelle. The limitations of mortal flesh are often a nuisance to you, but what a protection."
As he talked, he searched through the impressive clutter of his chamber, choosing pots and kettles in his careful, bumbling way, scratching runes upon them and the floor and in the air, and mumbling over names of elementals.
"It has been a long time since I brewed anything," he said, pressing his finger upon his forehead thoughtfully. "My supply of honey mead is down to one small cask. The day of the jotun and his wisdom is nearly done, my child."
"Could you not brew more mead and more knowledge?"
"I am too weary and your people too disbelieving."
As he worked over his brew in the kettle, he invoked names and elementals, all without benefit of the protective runes Isolf had seen her father use. Nor did Skrymir defend himself with guardian rings and pentacles scratched about him on the floor or in the air. She saw the faces of demons and elementals swirling in the air about Skrymir's head, and all were orderly and obedient.
The wizards of her own clan summoned fires and thunders and furies that wreaked terrible havoc before a way was found to banish them once again into the ether from whence they had been brought. Magic for mortals was a perilous business; plenty of aspiring wizards had been destroyed by their own spellcasting, carried away by the elementals they had rashly summoned, shapes shifted and souls cast out without knowing how to bring them back. Watching Skrymir, Isolf knew that they were an amateur, arrogant lot, grasping for dazzling truths with their eyes tight shut and their minds clouded with ignorance.
"A spirit guide, companion, and protector," mused Skrymir through a cloud of vapor rising from the kettle. "A boon to all mankind, a comfort to womankind in her lonely and difficult walks, an augment to her powers. A companion in grace and beauty and mystery and curiosity."
He searched about, examining and discarding several skins of animals. A bag spilled out small scraps of fur of all colors. The jotun studied them and sighed, shaking his head and furrowing up his forehead in consternation.
"None of these are big enough. The guardian of women must be somewhat bigger than the palm of my hand. I wish I could have had the supervision of the lion or the tiger. I would not have summoned such ferocious spirits into them. In the old days, we had limitless materials. Now there's scarcely anything left."
"If I had nothing but scraps to make a thing from, I would sew the scraps together to make a larger piece," said Isolf. "Perhaps I am presuming, but it seems a thrifty way to get rid of scraps."
"So be it." With a shrug Skrymir tossed the scraps of fur into the kettle. "Now for a spirit. It isn't easy to take the same piecemeal approach to fitting a spirit into a creation. I have many small spirits, friendly spirits, malicious spirits, playful spirits, fierce little spirits left over from weasels, foxes, martins, ferrets, and other little hunting creatures, affectionate spirits, sleepy spirits-all are very good spirits, for the most part, but nothing large enough for a creature such as I want to make. So the only thing to do is to lump them all together and hope for the best."
The moment Skrymir added the spirits and their Names, the brew in the kettle gained a voice. Or voices-Isolf heard a chorus of squeaking and mewing and yowling and squalling, as well as some fiery hissing and spitting.
"Nothing of this sort has ever been done before," said Skrymir dubiously, venturing to reach into the smoking kettle, resulting in a flurry of spitting and hissing and growling. When he withdrew his great hand, three small, multicolored furry creatures were clinging to it and glaring around with wild beady eyes.
"Claws! I don't remember adding claws! Or teeth!" said Skrymir in surprise as he attempted to dislodge the small growling creatures from his hand and sleeve. The little brutes climbed up to his shoulders with amazing speed and agility, still hissing and sputtering ferociously.
Three more pointed little faces peered out over the edge of the kettle in wild alarm. When Isolf stooped for a closer look, three pink mouths opened in virulent hissings and spittings. Short fuzzy tails like weasels, enormous batlike ears, legs like little sticks, and a wicked pixie-faced head set on a shapeless blob of a body that seemed more bristling fur than actual substance. When she ventured to advance one hand toward them, the three little fiends scuttled mightily and escaped from the kettle. The last view she had of them was three small shadows disappearing into the heaps of impossible clutter filling the room.
Skrymir beckoned for a basket and managed to unsnag the other three beasties from his shoulders and beard, dropping them one by one, sputtering, into the basket.
"I think," he said thoughtfully, "I must have put too much spirit into such little bodies."
"Never mind," said Isolf. "Perhaps the savage little monsters will be a match for the mice and rats. They don't seem very companionable."
Skrymir examined a large rent in his finger and quickly healed it with a bit of dust and spit. "I don't think they turned out very well. Not at all what I'd intended. When I catch those other three, I'll cast out a few of the wild and malicious spirits and see what we're left with."
"What are they called? All creatures must have a name."
"By naming them, we are claiming them," said Skrymir with a ponderous shake of his head. "We give them a certain power over us with a Name. When you say it, they will come, and they may come whether you want them or not. No, we won't name this creature just yet."
Isolf took the basket and the creatures to the scullery. Almost immediately the little beasts pushed off the lid when she wasn't looking and scuttled across the floor in three different directions. No amount of hunting and chasing recaptured them. Having better things to do, Isolf returned to her work. As she sat plucking a young goose, she saw shadows from the corners of her eyes, slinking around the edges and dark corners of the room. Indeed, the jotun had created company for her but not the sort of company she cared for. When her back was turned, the three creatures hurled themselves upon the goose and dragged it away, off the table and toward the den they had chosen in a cleft in the wall. Isolf saved the goose but not without a great deal of high-pitched growling from the little brutes. From then on she took care to leave no meat lying about unattended; even so, she frequently saw the creatures sniffing around for it on the table top or around the bucket of leavings for the midden heap.
It took only a few days for the other three beasts to join their fellows in the scullery. Now it seemed that everywhere she looked, Isolf saw multi-colored shadows flitting beneath the table, across the sleeping platform, or even creeping across the rafters overhead with larcenous intentions upon the meat curing there in the smoke of the fire. They snatched food straight out of the pot; if she left the lid off a moment, and if she turned her back on the table, whatever was on it immediately went careering toward the niche in the wall where the creatures had denned up. A pan of milk left for the cream to rise disappeared down six furry gullets, even if she weighted the lid down. It made no difference; the little beasts were amazingly strong and determined. Once she managed to grab one, with the idea of flinging it outside, but it twisted and lashed around like a mad thing so that no one could have held it, then shot away from her grasp like an arrow out of a bow.
When her father Alborg came to visit every six or seven days, he brought her a joint of meat or smoked fish, which drove the little beasties wild with its smell. She only left the fish on the table a moment to close the door, but when she turned, there they were, all six of them with their sharp little teeth fastened in the package, eyes glaring with fiendish joy as they bundled it away toward their den.
"Stop!" Isolf stamped her foot with a furious shriek. "You wicked, savage, hateful little kettlingur!"
Kettlingur! She had no idea from when the word had come, but she had named them. They glared at her a moment, a motley patchwork of colored fur, then abandoned the fish and scampered away into their den, with their insolent tails sticking straight up to show their disdain. From the safety of their den, they all stared back at her, wide-eyed, craning their necks to see what pitiful attempt she would make to hide the fish from them.
"Greedy little kettlingur!" she scolded them, shaking her finger in their direction. "At least I have something to call you now. I wonder which of Skrymir's friends or demons put your name into my head."
Watching them suspiciously as she unwrapped the fish, she was suddenly smitten with the comical expressions of their faces. Their random stripes and patches reminded her of little wild flowers growing beside the burn. Their ears were far too large, and their sly little noses were offset on either side by a sprig of mischievous pricking whiskers. One beastie's face was half black and half white, and one wore a mask over his eyes like a bandit.
Feeling her heart soften unexpectedly, Isolf set out a row of six smoked mackerel and retreated to watch. The kettlingur peered out of their den in astonishment, dividing their attention between Isolf and the fish until they were all squirming with impatience and greed. The one with the bandit mask was the first to fall out of the den and tumble toward the fish in a voracious pounce. The others scuttled after him, ignoring the five other fish. After a brief, hissing, yelling fight, the other kettlingur commenced to notice their scattered feast. It mattered not if any opposition was nearby or not; each kettling clamped down the fish with one clawed paw and gnawed on the rubbery fare to the tune of ferocious growling.
When that revolting display of greed and suspicion was over and the fish was gone, the kettlingur bathed themselves on the warm hearthstones. They not only earnestly licked their paws and rubbed their ears, they forgot their hard feelings over the mackerel and bathed each other until they all became so sleepy they could do nothing else but pile up in a helpless heap and purr themselves to sleep. With their eyes shut, they almost appeared to smile with innocence.
Isolf also smiled, for the first time since she had come to the jotun's hall.
On the following day she fed the kettlingur again. In scarcely any time at all, she had tamed them completely, and they swarmed over her like long-lost and needy relatives becoming reacquainted after a long separation. A parade of kettlingur attended her footsteps, in case she let fall something edible. When she sat, all six of them struggled desperately to crowd onto her lap, fighting for the best positions. Once content, they immediately fell asleep, grinning and sagging limply off her lap like dead things.
When Alborg and her brothers or other guests arrived, their dogs were usually relegated to the scullery. The kettlingur began to take offense at this invasion of their domain by great hairy, smelly beasts, or perhaps they were defending Isolf from imagined threat and insult. With rigid tails and spines, the six of them bristled up like cockleburrs. On stiffened legs they skittered at the dogs with explosive spittings and hissings. After a slash on its tender nose, any dog would give a frantic howl and dash for the safety of the main hall.
It was about this time that Isolf suspected that the kettlingur were indeed getting larger. Beyond a doubt, they were getting more ferocious as far as dogs and rats were concerned. Their bunchy little bodies elongated; their legs and tails lengthened, and their ears grew somewhat more into proportion with their faces. Their scruffy baby coats turned sleek and glossy, their button eyes turned into green or golden orbs. If anything, their playful antics became more violent as they grew. Isolf often nearly lost her feet in a maniac charge of rumbustious keetlingur, chasing each other for no good reason except high spirits. When one of them dragged in a dead rat, it was played with from one end of the scullery to the other, until an unsportsmanlike kettling ended the game by eating the ball.
Skrymir was not displeased with his furry inventions.
"Kettlingur," he mused, when Isolf told him what she had inadvertently named them. "Well, we can do nothing to change them now."
"We can do nothing at all with them," said Isolf. "They don't behave like dogs. They might come when I call them, if they are of a mind to. They usually don't. But they massacre rats and mice like Grimfang the warlord. If they didn't sleep most of the time, there wouldn't be a rat in all of Skarpsey."
"You are pleased with them," said Skrymir. "I hear you laugh often now, and I see you are smiling."
"Yes, they are good company, and often useful," said Isolf. "Thank you, Skrymir, for the kettlingur."
Other guests of Skrymir did not find the kettlingur so agreeable. One old jotun favored the form of a raggedy crow for his travels. When the kettlingur spied Hrafnbogi roosting untidily on the back of Skrymir's chair, they crouched down, eyes glinting with rapture, jaws chattering as if they were berserkers invoking the protection of their war gods. Then they hurled themselves to the attack, shinnying right up and over Skrymir and his chair. With a startled squawk, Hrafnbogi took to the air, barely sailing out of the reach of the masked rogue Fantur, who made a heroic and doomed leap into the air, which landed him in the woodbox. The other kettlingur chased poor old Hrafnbogi around the hall until he finally managed to gasp out the words to a shape shifting spell, collapsing breathlessly into a chair just as all six kettlingur pounced upon him. Suspiciously they sniffed over him as if he might be held responsible for hiding the carking crow under his rusty old cloak. Then Fantur discovered a moth to chase, and they launched themselves off Hrafnbogi's meager chest as if he were a springboard.
"What are these horrible little creatures?" he panted, his eyes red and moist with passion.
"Kettlingur," said Skrymir. "I made them for Isolf."
"Do they multiply?" demanded Hrafnbogi, settling his disarrayed cloak and hood with a ruffled sputtering.
"I fear so," said Isolf. "Kisa, the striped one, has five little kettlingur."
"Then we'd better call the big ones kettir," said Skrymir. "Now there's eleven of the creatures."
"And more to follow, I'm afraid," said Isolf. "Silki and Silfur seem awfully fat."
"They multiply like trolls!" Hrafnbogi patted his forehead with a fluttering kerchief. "We're doomed! And they eat birds, don't they?"
"Now then, don't be alarmed," said Skrymir. "We'll give them to the New People to get rid of their rats."
"New People! I wouldn't do them any favors. Do you know what they call us? Giants. Giants, out of their own covetous fear and profound ignorance!" Hrafnbogi shivered his rusty shoulders, reminding Isolf more of an exasperated old rooster than an all-powerful jotun.
"I hardly think giving them kettir and kettlingur is a favor," said Skrymir.
"They have no respect for the old ways. We'll all be forgotten, derided, and turned out." Hrafnbogi snapped his mouth shut, like a beak, and commenced to sulk.
"At least we'll no longer have to answer their questions and settle their feuds," said Skrymir with a long and weary sigh. "They'll have to manage for themselves."
Indeed, Skrymir was tired. Isolf had plenty of occasions to spy upon him unwittingly, and usually saw nothing more portentous than Skrymir sketching runes, burning incense, or reiterating a phrase with the aid of a knotted string. Much of the time he simply sat in his great chair and pondered, his chin upon his fist, his eyes lost beneath craggy brows. His shoulders stooped when no one was about, sagging under the weight of his immense store of knowledge, beginning far back at the start of time itself. The last remnants of the Elder People must be fairly tottering with the burgeoning Past, with no foreseeable end in sight for beings who would never taste death. Oft-times Isolf thought herself of little more consequence than an ant that lives and toils one summer and dies, when she compared herself to Skrymir's antiquity and wisdom.
Nor did the wisdom go uncoveted among mortal men. Isolf came to dread and resent the visits of heroes from far-flung settlements, in search of wealth and adventure.
"What am I to feed these brutes?" Isolf asked of Skrymir, when the mountain hall was filled with twenty or thirty skin-clad power seekers. "I have only a few hens and geese and three sheep. This lot would eat that much and look around for the main course!"
Skrymir surveyed the reeking brood with a tolerant smile, which was easy from his towering vantage point.
"Feed them this. It is what they came from, and what they will return to, so it should nourish them well." With one great hand he sifted a handful of dust into Isolf's outstretched apron.
When she returned to the scullery, she poured the dust into a large cauldron and filled it with water. One did not question a jotun's wisdom with puny mortal objections. When she heated the kettle of dust and water, she discovered that the dust had reorganized itself into boiled fowls, fish, mutton, cabbage, spices, and other things to make a feast for their uninvited guests.
Isolf, from then on when company came, wordlessly accepted a handful of dust and took it to the scullery, where a pinch of it in the dough trough became bread, or ale in the ale barrel, or soup in the cauldron, meat on the hook, or whatsoever she desired to place on the guest table.
Try as she might to keep them locked up, the kettir always managed to misbehave when visitors arrived. Dogs they would not tolerate a moment, sending them howling back into the cold dark corridors. The kettir then took possession of the hearth in the main hall and the space beneath the table, where guests were always wont to throw bones and scraps when they were done with them, or liable to spill or drop something tasty. The guests laughed when the kettir fought with the dogs, laughed when their boorish laughter frightened the kettir, laughed when an impudent kettir stealthily snagged a toothsome tidbit off someone's plate. The feasting always attracted a horde of rats, and the ferocity of the kettir in killing them never failed to excite the admiration of the travelers. Thus stuffed with food, the kettir posted themselves on the hearthstones like furry, purring hummocks of assorted colors, or showed off their amiability by climbing into the nearest cooperative lap to be petted. Frequently after a feasting, a bristling warrior crept self-consciously into the scullery to inquire if Isolf could spare a couple of kettlingur for a faraway wife or mistress. Though Isolf grieved at parting with her pretty kettlingur, she was pleased to see them carried away to far places to win fame and the admiration of mankind.
There were some guests, however, who would as soon make a kettir into a pair of gloves as look at it. Their hatred of kettir dawned upon them at first glance, much the same as some people loathe snakes.
Raud Airic was one of these kettir-haters, and fancied himself quite the wizard besides.
"What horrid little beasties!" he declared furiously, after the fearless Fantur made off with a well-nigh empty bone from his plate, adroitly dodging a cup Airic threw after him. To show his disdain, Fantur stopped a moment in the middle of the table to sit down and extend one hind foot for a quick licking, as if a few deranged hairs might seriously impair his retreat to the hearth.
"It only shows," continued Airic slyly, as if he thought Isolf could not hear him from her lonely position on the dais at the end of the hall, "that the skill of the Ancient Ones is declining with the rise of the New People. Once they created mountains and oceans and huge beasts with rending tusks and claws. Now we get kettir, sly and slinking little thieves, able to kill nothing larger than a rat. The last gasp of a once-noble race-"
He might have gone on, but his speech was sundered by a series of explosive sneezes. This, too, Isolf had noticed before. Kettir possessed the amazing ability to make some people sneeze and weep at the mere sight of them.
Unfortunately, the sneezing and weeping occasioned by the kettir did nothing to discourage Airic's visits to the mountain hall. Each time he came with more questions and insolence, bringing his warriors and apprentices with him to devour piles of food and generate a mountain of garbage.
"I don't know how you tolerate him!" flared Isolf to Skrymir. "He comes and demands the answers to his questions and scarcely has the manners to thank you for them. And we know he doesn't put his answers to happy uses, Wise One. Yet last time you let him have the secret for predicting the eclipses of sun and moon, as well as the mysteries of the herbs, both good and deadly. Who knows what he wants now?"
Skrymir chuckled. "Airic doesn't even know what it is he ought to be asking for. Herbs and astrology ought to make him feel very important for awhile. We shan't worry about Airic until he learns the right questions."
To Isolf s dismay, it was not half a year before Airic returned, alone this time, and she instinctively knew that he had come with the right questions at last. His elegant wizard's robes were ragged now, his boisterous companions forgotten, and his eye gleamed with the light of dawning meaningfulness.
"What have you come for this time?" Skrymir's question hung in the air, like runes etched with fire, though his voice was soft and gentle. He had not bothered to alter his form to a more impressive one; he still looked like Isolf's grandfather, who had spent his early days as a renowned Viking and his latter days puttering about in the vegetable garden, growing useful plants that no one had ever seen before. He, too, had known the secrets of the jotun race.
"I have come for the honey mead," said Airic.
"I have never been loath to share it before," said Skrymir. "You yourself have tasted it already, many times."
"Yes, but not your oldest and most potent honey mead. This is where your best knowledge lies hidden. All that you have given mankind until now has been merely the stuff of survival. We have come to you seeking to become great, and you have sent us away with simple skills, and we considered them marvelous because we had not seen them before. Brewing, cheesemaking, forging of metals, all this has become ordinary to us now. I have learned, jotun, that humankind can be as great as the Elder Race-maybe greater, since we are destined to rule the world. You have held something back from us. We are entitled to all your knowledge, not just trivial scraps."
"What would this knowledge accomplish in human hands? Would all men have it, or just a chosen few?"
"These powers are not suitable for all men. I have seen you form living creatures from a pinch of dust. I have seen you summon life into them. You can heal the dying, call the life back to the dead, and you are invulnerable to wounds or death. All this is done with the powers of the mind, not of sword or formulae written down in a book. You have pretended to enlighten us, Skrymir, but we are as much in the dark as animals when it comes to real knowledge."
"Mankind is not done with warfaring yet. When he is tired of the sword and the fetter, he will come naturally into the hidden powers of his mind. Be assured, Airic, they are waiting for the right time to blossom."
"This is the right time," said Airic. "We need those powers now to subdue our enemies, to know when they are plotting to attack, to see and hear them from afar for our own protection. Give me the honey mead and I will keep it safe for mankind."
"What are you prepared to give?" asked Skrymir. "Great gifts have high prices. Sometimes they take a great deal of time. Human possessions for the most part are nothing but trash and trouble. And I have no use for any more firstborn children."
"Time to a mortal is the only thing of true value. Let us make a wager, my life against your wisdom. I shall prove my worthiness."
A wager. Isolf sighed and rolled her eyes. For a moment, she had almost believed Airic more clever than the rest who had come swaggering and wagering to Skrymir's mountain. Usually Skrymir feigned defeat, letting them carry away a bellyful of honey mead and some trifling enchanted cup or sword in heroic self-congratulatory zeal. Once the cup or sword was taken out of Skrymir's enchanted presence, it would soon lose its powers and become as uncooperative as any other cup or sword. The mead itself would be pissed against some wall somewhere, but with luck, the pinch of wisdom contained in it might lodge within the bearer's mind and become useful.
"A wager. Very well," said Skrymir. "What do you wish? Three questions? A quest? A challenge to combat?"
Isolf heaved a short impatient sigh and made a disdainful clucking sound. The warriors who challenged Skrymir were perhaps the most pathetic of all, swaggering into the hall, sleek and bulging with muscle, exuding all the confidence and intelligence of an ox being led to the butcher's stall. Tiresome indeed for Skrymir, who tried to meet their furious attacks as creatively as possible, after thousands of years of the same glinty-eyed heroes seeking aggrandizement by killing a being they did not understand. Skrymir obligingly conjured a monster for such characters to fight, and then sent them packing with a trunkful of gold or jewels.
"A quest," said Airic. "Send me in search of treasure and power, and if I return successful, all the honey mead will be mine. I shall supplant you in wisdom. Men shall come to me for a sip of mead."
"And if you fail?"
"Then you get to keep everything you've got, and I shall probably be too dead to trouble you further."
"Well enough. As a jotun, I never lose a serious wager with a mortal, unless it's a mere trifle, or something your race needs anyway. I warn you, mortal, I shall not let you win this time. The gifts you desire are the greatest knowledge I possess."
"You won't need to allow me to win," said Airic. "I shall succeed on the merit of my own skill and wisdom, and I shall have the mead."
"Very well. I shall send you on a journey. Return to me with three magical objects, and you shall have what you wish. Bring to me the diamonds of Borkdukur, the captive princess of Fluga, and the sacred Orb of Ekkert, and then the last secrets of the Elder Race shall be yours."
"Then I shall be off upon my expedition. Would you mind pointing me in the proper direction for Borkdukur?"
"Certainly not. Anything to be of service. You simply go south until you reach the land of giant trees. You must climb up one of them until you reach the land of clouds. You'll know you are there when the landscape turns white, and scarcely anything grows upon the ground,"
"Thank you. I shall return quite soon, I'm certain."
"Good day to you, sir."
Airic bowed mockingly low, chuckling in a very superior way. In the midst of his bowing, Skrymir flicked one hand and Airic suddenly vanished with an unsavory-smelling puff of murky smoke. It smelled like hog-rendering days back in Holm. Isolf wrinkled her nose and looked for the greasy spot that must have been Airic. Instead, what she saw was a little creature about the size of a dung beetle tumbling around in a violent tussle with a linty length of worsted thread that must have come unraveled from the hem of Isolf s gown, trailing as it did across the rough flagstones of Skrymir's cave.
A closer look revealed that the beetle-creature was Airic, shrunken down to a less troublesome size.
"Hah, now all that remains is to step upon him and our troubles are over," said Isolf cheerfully.
"No, no, we must allow him his chance to prove himself," said Skrymir tolerantly. "Besides, he's going to have a great adventure, which will be handed down from generation to generation, gathering embellishments each time it's told, until Airic will be quite a hero. Who are we to deny him his moment of fame?"
"Compared to him, we are gods," said Isolf. "We can do anything we please to him. See, now it is nighttime."
She inverted a bowl over him, putting an end to his manful battle with the string. "You shall win, of course," said Isolf.
"There's no way out of it, I fear."
"Why would you wish to lose? Why didn't you just give Airic the mead and the wisdom?"
"Mortals learn best by opposition at every turn and obfuscation of their simplest desires. He would be suspicious and unappreciative of an unearned gift."
Skrymir rose to his feet and stepped over the bowl, treading as carefully as he could. "I've become so weary of my burden, child. Mortalkind is almost ready to carry itself, instead of riding upon my shoulders. I shall welcome the day when no one believes in jotuns. Then I shall take my walking stick and disappear into the mountains. Watch out for him awhile, won't you? Do what you wish to make his journey as uncomfortable as possible, short of killing him outright."
Isolf considered the bowl a moment, then removed it from over Airic. She was amused to discover that he had hacked the string into a hundred pieces, then he had curled up and gone to sleep in a fissure in the floor, with a tiny spark of a fire glinting like a jewel.
For the fun of it, Isolf blew on him, buffeting him around awhile like a grain of wheat on a skillet.
"Wake up and get along your journey, you lazy dolt," she said.
For an hour or more he scuttled around among various obstructions, sticks of firewood, ashes, dead coals. Once he blundered into a dropped glove, and Isolf turned it around to face another direction when he came out, in case he had begun to get his bearings somewhat. True to her suspicions, he wandered out and became lost in a forest of chairs and stool legs. Isolf became tired of him after watching him laboriously climb several chair legs, so she put the bowl over him and went on her way.
Remembering Airic some hours later, she returned and took off the bowl. After climbing a few more chair legs, he ran into the well-picked skeleton of a chicken in the twilight land beneath the table. It must have seemed a land of death; bones from the table had been tossed under there from the previous night's feasting. The kettir had taken what they wanted, leaving the rest for the mice and rats.
Isolf scraped off a few plates and trenchers. Attracted by a sudden squealing and squeaking, she peered beneath the table and spied a mouse kicking around in death throes, with something like a pin stuck in its throat. The tiny figure of Airic put its foot on the monster's shaggy neck and pulled out his sword. Busily he wiped it on his pants and put it away, drawing out his knife to begin skinning the creature. He worked industriously, skinning a beast that was at least the size of a horse to him. When he had the skin off, he built a fire and carved off some choice steaks, which he cooked over the fire. Using the mouse skin for a small tent, he climbed beneath it and went to sleep probably exhausted, but his troubles were far from over. Attracted by the smell of blood, the rats came out of hiding, lumbering along with twitching whiskers in hope of a fresh meal for once, instead of the usual humble table leavings. One of them made off with the mouse carcass and another set its teeth in the skin, but Airic came charging out in defense of his hard-won property, and stuck his sword into the rat's nose. With a startled squeak, it shook away a drop of blood and rubbed its nose. Gritting its teeth menacingly, the rat charged at this unfamiliar little animal challenging him for his deserved scavenging rights.
Isolf watched the battle with interest. The rat attacked and fell back rebuffed twice. Eyes glaring, it paused to consider its opponent, then it rushed again. This time, a puff of flame engulfed the rat, setting its fur on fire. Isolf blinked, amazed and curious, but Airic was, after all, a wizard of sorts. After a few more puffs and bursts of flame, the rat collapsed upon its back and expired, no doubt a great deal astonished to find itself killed by such a minute opponent.
Next Airic made an assault upon a table leg, which would have led him to the land of Borkdukur -or Tablecloth, in the old language of the jotuns. However, Airic stopped for the night in a knothole in the table leg, after first evicting a large spider from her nesting place. The spider blindly insisted upon her knothole, until Airic used some spell or other and fried her into a sizzled knot of crisped legs and withered carapace.
Isolf settled down with some sewing while she watched him, with several kettir and kettlingur for company. The kettir went to sleep, too full and lazy to do more than eyeball the occasional rat under the table. The kettlingur romped and wrestled themselves to exhaustion, then fell asleep in Isolf s lap, trusting her to catch them when they were about to slide off on their brainless little heads.
Meanwhile, Airic made it to the top of the table and commenced a perilous journey across the wasteland of eating untensils, crockery, jugs, and the other natural hazards left over after a meal. Once he stepped into a small pool of spilled honey and had a wretched time extricating himself. Then he climbed onto a large slice of bread and nearly broke his leg stepping into unsuspected air pockets. With the worst sort of judgment possible, he discovered the entire loaf and wandered into quite a large tunnel, and finally emerged a few inches away, coughing and sputtering after hacking his way through part of the loaf like a maggot. Obviously feeling out of sorts at the experience, Airic dusted off his cloak and conjured a great sheet of flame that browned the slice of bread as nicely as if it had been done on a toasting fork. Isolf frowned upon this veiled insult to her breadmaking skills. Her mother had always told her she mixed a very fine loaf, with excellent flavor and a dainty crumb.
Presently Airic ran up against the saltcellar, with its accompanying sprinkling of salt crystals surrounding it. For a short while he seemed stunned by his success, holding up the crystals and examining them with reverential awe. Then in a disgusting display of avarice, he scuttled about gathering the salt crystals into heaps. When he was almost done, an ant strolled out from behind the milk jug, waving its antennae curiously. Airic evidently perceived himself endangered by this armored newcomer, and commenced battering the little creature with his sword. The ant had only the most vague notions of defense, and did not imagine itself imperiled until Airic managed to sever its back end from the rest of its body. Enraged, the creature went after him with clashing jaws, until its strength gradually deteriorated into mindless spasms, evidently lacking some vital communications available only from its severed hindquarters. Some last desperate plea for assistance must have escaped the dying ant; no sooner had it beetled away and dropped off the table than half a dozen replacements appeared on the scene. Immediately the ants were fascinated by the salt crystals and commenced carting them off in all directions, running back and forth, seizing and dropping salt with no discernible plan to their activity. The more Airic hacked and slashed and tore off legs and feelers and hinderparts, the more ants came swarming across the table to see what the fuss was, and to get themselves hacked and dismantled until the tablecloth was strewn with ant parts and wounded ants staggering around in headless, legless disarray.
Airic mounted a blistering defense behind a lump of potato, with a heap of salt crystals at his back. One of the ants suddenly discovered the treacherous pool of honey, and before long the rest of the attackers had forsaken Airic completely for the privilege of becoming thoroughly mired in the honey, after first drinking themselves delirious in their final revels before their inevitable and sticky death.
Airic meanwhile gathered up his salt crystals and fell down in an exhausted sleep. Isolf considerately put the bowl over him, in case any more ants felt the call to the battle of the dinner table.
Isolf removed a few more platters and took them to the scullery to be washed. When she returned, she removed the bowl to see what adventures Airic would stumble into next. Busily he gathered up his salt, or diamonds, and set off across the tablecloth, first in the direction of a wet place where Isolf had spilled her ale. Airic forged his way into the heart of the spill, where he bogged down eventually and stopped. Listening closely, Isolf could hear a faint tinny voice uplifted in riotous song. From the looks of him, he had no intention of getting on with anything but getting thoroughly drunk. Isolf shook her head and clucked her tongue in disapproval. Well, if that was all the better he could do, he had done for himself until the tablecloth dried. She took out a basket of mending and measured a length of thread.
Airic might have wallowed there in the pool of ale until he shriveled up, neatly preserved like a dead insect in alcohol, but a small yellow moth happened on the scene, hatched from some forgotten clutch of eggs in a protected niche, left after its progenitors had extincted themselves in the candle flames, or sputtered out in molten wax. For want of a candle to die in, the moth delicately teetered on the edge of the gravy bowl, hovered yearningly over the lip of the milk jug, staggered around the rim of the honey pot, and finally settled on the spilled ale, fanning its dainty wings as it sampled the heady fare.
Airic roused himself from his stupor and wobbled after the little moth, thinking perhaps he was being subjected to a most holy vision. Unheeding, the moth skipped away, with Airic running after it in a frenzy of visionary zeal. Tilting fore and aft, port to starboard, the moth skimmed drunkenly over the table, circling rapturously over a half-smothered candle flame, with Airic in hot pursuit. It had got Airic out of the ale, at least, Isolf noted with satisfaction, as she nipped off her thread between her teeth. Self-indulgence was not seemly in a questing hero.
Somewhat burdened down by his diamonds, Airic pursued the moth through a forest of scattered cutlery, and over a mountain range of crumpled cloth in pursuit of his vision. Next he climbed up into the meat platter, which had just been discovered by a flock of wasps and honeybees. The fickle moth settled down on an island of meat in a swamp of congealing grease, opening and shutting its wings tantalizingly. Airic plunged into the grease, not realizing how deep it was going to get by the time he reached the meat scrap where the moth rested. Considerately, Isolf threw in a raft of bread, which enabled him to reach the island. By this time the wasps and bees had settled on this juicy bit of choice property. One wasp darted at Airic in defense of their meal, buzzing menacingly. Catching it amidships, he exploded it in a sooty conflagration of wing and leg parts. The wasp kited about in a furious, disabled manner before plummeting out of control into a cup, where it flamed out in the last drops of remaining ale. Another mindless battle commenced, and it might have turned out rather badly for Airic if Isolf hadn't tired of wasps and bees falling into the leftover food, which she thriftily planned to feed to Airic when he returned from his adventure. The scraps she calculated to make soup of, and to take a pot of it to old Hrafnbogi's housekeeper, an ancient little crone down with a spring chill. Dead bees and wasps would not enhance the soup, so she scattered the insects by flapping a cloth at them, swatting some of them down and crushing them efficiently with a butter paddle. The charred carcasses she flipped out of the grease, thinking to save it for soap-another skill which Skrymir had taught her people.
Airic captured his moth at last, securing it with a raveled thread from the tablecloth. Hearing a suspicious crash from the scullery, Isolf threw down her mending and hurried to see what mischief the kettir were causing. It was nothing more than Fantur and Silki overturning a pot to see what might be inside; it had been foolish of Isolf to ever have put the lid on, knowing as she did that such a mystery was irresistible to kettir. An open pot would have been investigated or perhaps napped in or hidden in during a play-battle, but a closed kettle invited trouble.
Scolding them gently, she righted the kettle and left the lid off, thereby removing the dread kettir enigma of the unknown.
When she returned to the eating hall, she discovered Airic surrounded by a circle of curious kettlingur. He had taken refuge inside an overturned cup, and the kettlingur took turns poking their paws in after him, adroitly springing away when he popped sparks at them. When they weren't occupied with Airic, they batted about a small glass bead from Isolf s belt, which she intended to mend. Airic also had designs upon the bead, and made heroic forays out to attempt to secure it, a circumstance with delighted the young kettlingur to no end. They reared up and pounced at him, titillated by the sparks he threw and the desperate fluttering of the moth still trapped in the cup by its string tether. Once Airic was seized in two paws and carried aloft toward some very sharp and inquisitive little teeth, but Isolf distracted the kettling from its intended feast by tweaking its stumpy tail. With a hiss, it dropped Airic in the butter and jumped over the water jug, upsetting it and creating a brief but lively flood across the table top. The kettlingur scuttled for safety the moment their feet got wet. Airic slid down off the butter and at once took possession of the glass bead.
"I don't think Airic has learned much from his adventuring," Isolf greeted Skrymir upon his return to the hall. "Not only has he taken affront and slaughtered quite a few innocent creatures who were just doing what nature intended them to do, he has made a captive of that poor yellow moth. It's going to die unless he lets it go. Should I let the kettlingur have him? They're just perishing for a chance to play with him."
Skrymir set down in his chair to watch a moment as Airic chipped away manfully at the gold handle of a knife. Inadvertently he kicked the table leg, creating a considerable earthquake in Airic's world as a cup toppled and the jugs and crockery clattered.
"It's time for him to return for his reward," said Skrymir. "This is the last gift I shall give to the New People. The time has come for me to go away and allow you to find your own way now."
"Alone? But Skrymir, we are helpless little fools, bungling around like Airic on the table top, blind to what's directly in front of us. Simple things are like mountains to us. Tremendous things we climb over without seeing. Without you and the wisdom of the jotuns, all manner of dreadful things will befall us!"
"You won't be completely alone," said Skrymir. "You shall have the likes of Airic to help you and defend you and impart to you what knowledge they see fit."
"Airic!"
As soon as she said it, Airic himself stood before her.
His clothing was nothing but shreds, well-greased and torn and blackened. His handsome fox-colored beard and mane of hair were now streaked with gray, and his face had aged into a map of wrinkles and anxious creases.
"What an adventure I've had!" he exclaimed. "I traveled to strange and wonderful lands! I've returned burdened with the wealth I've discovered! I've rescued a king's daughter from a dread enchantment and I've killed a thousand hideous enemies! You should have seen the flying dragons, the hairy monsters that would have eaten me, the great beasts with enormous teeth! My journey has made me rich and powerful." He slapped about among his belt pouches. "Look at this! I truly discovered the diamonds of Borkdukur! Thousands of them!"
"Yes, indeed you have," said Skrymir. "And I have prepared for you your reward. Isolf, fetch the milk jug. Pour out a draught for our champion."
Isolf obligingly found a clean cup and poured out some milk. Deep in sleep, the kettir recognized one of their favorite sounds and came twining and purring around her legs, rearing up to butt her knees encouragingly.
"That's nothing but milk," said Airic after a quick sniff, disdainfully tossing the milk onto the floor. "Food for those miserable kettir and nothing more. Do you think I can be fooled so easily? I earned the honey mead, and that's what I must have!"
"You refuse to be rewarded? Well, Isolf, bring him the last cask from the cellar. The smallest and oldest one, marked with three crosses."
Isolf brought the cask from the cellar under the kitchen floor. She had no way of guessing how long it had been since it had seen the light of day. Airic's eyes gleamed as he tossed down a cup of the ancient stuff, which filled the room with its acrid perfume.
"Now ends the rule of the jotuns," he said. "Mortal man is now the wisest of all earth's creatures."
"Perhaps now that you've claimed your reward, we'd be wise to examine your trophies," said Skrymir.
Airic upended one pouch, his eyes glittering in expectation, but all that came out was a sifting of salt. His countenance changed from the heady flush of arrogance to a deathly pallor.
"Where are my diamonds?" he gasped. "I had them! They were here right in my hands!"
Skrymir gently tapped the salt cellar with a spoon and shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing in this world is more difficult to hold onto than wealth," he said.
"Wait! I have the chieftain's daughter! She's in a different form, winged, like a bird-" He pulled out another pouch as he talked, opened it, and the little yellow moth fluttered out, tumbling in mid-air like a fragment of sunlight. With sudden unerring accuracy, the moth took a dive at the table, where a stump of a candle still sputtered and oozed in a pool of wax. Only a wisp of flame remained, but it was enough. The moth expired in a small, silent explosion of flame, like a minuscule funeral ship cast upon the waters, and its charred remains fell into the wax;
"Oh, no! My princess!" Airic gasped. "I could have married her and inherited a tremendous kingdom!"
Skrymir shook his head slowly and made a comforting clucking sound. "Fame among men is as fleeting as a circling candle-moth," he said.
"Never mind," said Airic. "I still have the orb of Ekkert. Unlimited power is mine to command."
He searched about among his pouches, his expression growing strained. Tentatively he peered into one, then upended it with an impatient shake. The lone bead from Isolf s girdle dropped out and bounced into a nearby plate, where it lodged in a spot of congealed fat. Without speaking, Isolf fished it out, wiped it out, and quickly stitched it back into its place in the design on her belt.
"Power is never what it appears," said Skrymir.
Airic slumped into a chair. "Nothing! I've gotten nothing, after all I've been through! All the years I labored-" Suddenly a cunning smile overspread his features. "But at least I have the honey mead. I have beaten you, jotun. Your knowledge is mine."
"Yes, I've been fairly bested," said Skrymir, reaching for an old ragged cloak hanging on a peg. "All I have is now yours, Airic. Mankind will no longer be troubled by jotuns meddling in their affairs." Taking a walking staff from the corner, he turned toward the door with a farewell wave to Isolf and a gentle smile of weary peace. He truly looked much smaller in stature now, a withered little hobgoblin of a creature.
"Yes! Go! I already foresee-I foresee-" Airic shut his eyes and stretched out his hand in a compelling gesture.
"What do you foresee?" asked Isolf.
His eyes snapped open. "I foresee nothing! He's given me hindsight in the mead instead of foresight! The true gift was in the milk! Stop him before he's gone! Come back, jotun! You tricked me!"
"You tricked yourself, you arrogant fool!" Isolf said, turning to look for Skrymir, but the stooped, ragged figure had vanished, with a chuckle still echoing in the earthen halls.
Mocking the chuckle, a contented purring sound rose to Isolf s ears. Kettir and kettlingur were beneath the table, avidly lapping up the milk and the jotun's last gift of knowledge along with it. More kettir came scampering in from the hall and the scullery, guided by the unfailing kettir instinct for knowing when their fellows have fallen upon favorable circumstances involving food.
"Kettir!" gasped Airic. "Those horrid little beasts will have the last of the jotun knowledge!"
Their clever little tongues cleaned out every crevice and polished the floor to a glossy sheen. Fantur had his head inside the cup, lapping noisily. With a despairing wail, Airic lunged for the cup. Fantur leaped away as if scalded, slinging the cup over the stones toward Isolf. The kettir scattered before Airic, tangling among his legs. Isolf seized the disdained cup and drained out the last drops of milk, making scarcely a swallow.
"No! That's mine! It's wasted upon you!" roared Airic, snatching the cup from her hands. It popped from his grasp as if it were greased, and shattered on the flagstones. Airic frozen, clenching his fists. For a moment Isolf feared he would kill her, but Airic sank into a chair and buried his face with a groan of defeat. The kettir assembled upon the hearthstone, bathing themselves and each other after their milky feast. Chancing to open his eyes and glimpse them, he groaned afresh, with deeper misery.
"Don't despair so," said Isolf. "Surely you've learned something from your travails."
"Nothing except the pain of hindsight. Nothing a man can do is worth anything worthwhile at all," said Airic bitterly. "The moment he thinks he's got wealth or influence or power, he takes a look at it and realizes it's nothing but trash and illusion. My life is nearly over, wasted and foolishly spent on trivialities. I'm old and I've been a fool. There's nothing left for me but to die. I never dreamed he would put the knowledge into something as common and simple as milk, when he's so famous for his honey mead."
"Skrymir offered you his most priceless secrets, and you refused to take them," said Isolf. "Now all of them have gone down the throats of the kettir. At least someone will possess some of the gift. And better womankind and kettir than your sort."
"But what knowledge has the jotun given you and those wretched beasts?" Airic demanded. "Do you feel different, now you've got some of the jotun's knowledge? Can you see the future? Things far off? Do you hear voices?"
Aide's questions went unanswered. Isolf packed up her few possessions and a large basket of young kettlingur. The adult kettir followed her down from the mountain to the settlements, where they very promptly ensconced themselves in nearly every home and byre and fishing shack. No woman walked without a kettir at her heels, and no hearth was long vacant of its kettir protectors.
Travelers from far places carried away many of the attractive and affectionate little beasts without seriously reducing their thriving population. Strangely enough, no matter how far they were carried away, a few kettir with amazing skills of navigation managed to find their way home again, and some of them several times, and even over water to get there. Isolf read the jotun's gift in their eyes and smiled in her quiet way when people marveled.
For many years she went about her business of healing the bodies and woes of mankind, as befit her status as village wisewoman. Cats and cradles always sat upon her hearth, and her daughters grew up as wise and clever as Isolf at seeing beyond the things directly before their eyes. Her sons were fey warriors, knowing when to go to battle and when to stay home with their women and kettir.
Isolf never saw Skrymir again, though she and her favorite kettir often walked the mountain trails looking for a ragged old wanderer with a walking staff. Many times she felt that he was close, giving her warnings and intuitions that saved her and her clan much grief. In times of serious trial she thanked him silently for the small swallow of jotun knowledge he had afforded her. The kettir, with their large alert ears seemed to hear Skrymir's voice far better, and their gleaming eyes that penetrated the dark seemed to see him lurking and watching. What else those green and golden orbs perceived was denied to human eyes.
Kettir cleared the barns and cheered the hearts of many lonely people and imparted their secret knowledge to those who had the skill to hear them. Kettir in the future would be both revered as gods and hated as devils, hunted and destroyed as such by ignorant and devilish humankind. Both a blessing and a cursing had been given to mankind, and all because of a lonely mortal maid and a cup of spilled milk.