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to
explain. Then, straining his ears, he raised a hand. "Hush! Did you hear
something?"
Both of them froze, listening. Hal found himself intently focusing on a sound
that might be the rumbling approach of the Chariot of Thor, carrying no
passenger or no living one at least pulled by its two magic Goats. For a
moment
his imagination pictured the vehicle arriving at or near the crag, so he
would
be able to scramble near it somehow and look inside.
But that was not happening. He could imagine any presence that he liked, but
there was no sign of any Chariot.
Quite near at hand, though, another noise startled Hal. He grabbed at his
belt
for an axe that was no longer there, then looked around him for a weapon, any
weapon. A rapid, bouncing, scraping noise, like something hard on rock. Then
he
saw what it was. No, not Chariot wheels.
The Hammer of Thor was no longer circling the crag or skimming the deep pool
either. Having now entirely lost its glow of burning heat, it was bounding
and
skipping around the newly opened and exposed surface of the crag, from which
Loki's fires had only moments ago been banished. The rocks were still marked
with neat concentric rings where magic fires had blackened them. The four
open
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holes of the two tunnels looked utterly pointless now.
Again Hal was struck by the fact that Myelnir's handle seemed incongruously
short, and he wasn't even sure that it was made of wood. Could the whole
Hammer
possibly be one piece of forged metal?
Hal heard no voice, and yet had the distinct impression that he was being
sent a
message: You wanted a weapon. So here I am.
His fighter's instinct, which he trusted more than any conscious plan, took
over. Wodan, or the gods knew what, might be coming at him even now. Spurred
by
fear of what could happen if he did not act, Hal lunged for the Hammer and
managed to seize its incongruously short handle in his right hand.
A moment later he was hanging on for dear life as Myelnir yanked him to his
feet, then right off his feet, as if he were a child trying to hold onto a
god's
hand. But the stubbornness that won in combat had sprung to life in Hal, and
he
would not let go. Before he had time to draw another breath, he was being
swirled away, dragged up into the clouds in a flight at screaming speed. This
time there was no Horse beneath him, and his whole weight hung on one hand.
Alvit was crying out in fear. She had been standing right beside him only a
moment ago, but now her cries came faintly to Hal's ears, from a great and
growing distance.
A plunge into the deep river from the height of the crag's top would have
been
terrible, but that he might possibly have survived. But before he could
wonder
whether it was wise to hang on an instant longer, he was at such an altitude
that it would have been sure death to let the Hammer go. Besides, now he was
no
longer over water.
The wind of his passage was roaring in his ears. His weapons that he depended
on
had all been left behind, just like his gold. Just like his imaginary farm,
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that
now he would never see. He could do nothing but hang on for dear life.
21
Now Alvit had completely disappeared from Hal's sight, her screams swallowed
by
the rushing wind of his passage as the Hammer dragged him upward. The Hammer
was
the one thing in the world Hal could claim as a possession now, outside of a
few
rags of bloodstained clothing, cloak and leggings torn by the savage wind
with
every moment of his soaring, roaring flight.
No prospects of a peaceful farm for Hal the Northman now he could not even
reach
a handful of dirt. No fishing boats, not even a few splinters from a
waterlogged
hull. And not an ounce of gold. There was only the rush of air that caught
and
tore his breath away.
His insane hurtling flight seemed to prolong itself for hours. Had he not
earlier begun to accustom himself to flight on Horseback, sheer panic might
have
broken his stubborn, life-saving grip upon the Hammer. But as it was, his
fingers stayed clamped tight. Presently he thought that if he tried, really
made
a great effort, he might be able to swing himself up one-handed, against the
screaming pull of speeding air, to lock his left hand also on the Hammer's
handle. Short as that shaft was, there certainly ought to be room for a man's
two hands.
With a gasping exertion he managed, on the third try, to accomplish that. Now
his right arm had some ease from the killing strain of his full weight, and
his
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dread of being torn loose at every moment was eased a little.
In his current situation, he had gone far beyond being upset by looking down.
Numbly he watched as a layer of broken clouds streamed by beneath him. What
little he could see of the earth below, streaked with long slanting shadows
as
the time neared sunset, strongly suggested that he was being carried into
regions that he had never been before. There were no mountains below him, or
immediately nearby. At least he could be sure that he was not being borne
back
to Valhalla.
How long the journey really lasted was impossible to say. After a flight
wilder
than any Horse had given him, Hal felt the terrible speed begin to lessen,
and
he could see that he was coming down. During the descent, the flying Hammer
shifted its orientation so the handle was still pointing toward the earth.
Land spread below him, dark and flat and unfamiliar. Trying to see where he
was
going to alight, Hal saw a flat dull expanse, and in the middle of it an
object,
dead ahead, that was soon close enough to be recognizable as Thor's chariot,
the
two Goats still in harness.
Around the motionless vehicle, rapidly growing larger as he flew toward it,
there spread what he now perceived as a vast, roadless and unnavigable marsh,
clinging to the rim of some great river. Was it the Einar? He couldn't tell. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]