The Sea of Trolls

from. They were simply there, shimmering all around. The air thickened like honey; the water began to stir.

It was full of roots. They snaked everywhere, drawing the sun to their green depths. Fish glided in and out of their coils. The roots grew upward and became branches when they reached the air. They unfurled leaves such as were never seen in Middle Earth. Green and gold they shone, and the birds hid their nests among them.

It was too much. The vision was too intense to bear. Jack felt his head swim and then he fell. He woke with Rune holding a skin of water to his lips. Olaf knelt at his side. “What did you just do?”

“I—uh—” Jack choked on the water.

“He called to Yggdrassil,” said Rune.

Jack sat up to see Eric Pretty-Face, Sven the Vengeful, and the others clustered at the other end of the ship. They looked utterly spooked. Bold Heart perched on the mast and warbled joyfully. He, apparently, hadn’t found the presence of Yggdrassil upsetting at all.

“Rune said the life force was strong here and that I should try to see it,” Jack said.

“Don’t do that again,” said Olaf. “We heard you chanting a poem. The air filled with the sound of wings. I thought a dragon had discovered us. Then the sea churned, and Sven thought we were being attacked by a sea serpent. I know you’re used to such things, but the rest of us don’t like them.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“It’s my fault,” said Rune. “He’s untrained and likely to overdo things.”

“Like turning the queen bald. That was a good trick, though.” Olaf smiled. “You’re a fine skald, and if we survive, I expect many poems out of you.”

“I could write poetry too,” said Thorgil. “If I tried.”

“You? Don’t make me laugh,” said Olaf. “Everyone knows women can’t write verses. It’s only for men.”

“I can do anything a man can!” cried Thorgil. Her face turned red.

“You’re a good shield maiden, and you’ll be a great berserker someday. Don’t ask for the moon.”

“I can do it! Don’t laugh at me!”

“Better I laugh than throw you overboard,” said Olaf. His voice had become quiet and dangerous. Thorgil stopped arguing, but she cast poisonous looks at Jack as she plied the rudder.

As they went deeper into Jotun Fjord, the teeming bird-and fish-life disappeared. Jack saw only one salmon rising to snap at a fly. But that salmon was enormous. Jack’s skin tingled, and he heard something—wind in the trees, perhaps—that was too faint to identify. “It feels strange here,” he said.

“That’s because we’re in Jotunheim.” Rune’s voice, always quiet, was even quieter now.

“Already?”

“We’ve crossed the border from our world into theirs. They”—the old warrior indicated the forest, the mountains, the fjord—“belong. We don’t. What you feel is the watching.”

Jack wished Rune hadn’t said that. Now he could feel the attention directed toward the ship. The trees seemed more alert. The mountains loomed closer, and yet they couldn’t have moved—could they? Eyes watched from beneath the spruce and junipers. Jack couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.

“They don’t like us, do they?” he said.

“We don’t like them either, when they invade our world,” said Rune. “Fortunately, a troll is far weaker in our world than in his. If it weren’t so, Eric Pretty-Face’s teeth would be decorating a Jotun’s chest instead of the other way around. We’d never have captured Golden Bristles on his home ground.”

“Does that mean we’re weaker here?”

“Yes,” said Rune.

The ship glided deeper into the fjord. The snowy mountain Jack had noticed when they entered seemed higher now. The air over it shone with a kind of shimmering, shifting light.

“That’s where the Mountain Queen lives,” said Olaf, who had joined them. “Frith’s mother.”

“Who’s Frith’s father?”

“Some poor wretch,” said Olaf. “He may have been a great hero. I don’t know. He died long ago.”

“Jotuns are long-lived,” said Rune.

“Why would any human marry a troll?” asked Jack.

Olaf and Rune looked at each other. “It isn’t a matter of choice,” Olaf said. “Troll-maidens get their husbands by capture. They’re bigger, you see. They usually find themselves a nice lout.”

“‘Lout’ is what they call a male troll,” explained Rune.

“But now and then they’ll go for an ogre or even a largish human.”

“Like… you?” Jack said, looking at Olaf.

The giant winced. “I escaped that fate, though only by the greatest good fortune. Ivar wasn’t so lucky. We’d been poking around, trying to find a dwarf forge and perhaps some gold. The Jotuns ambushed us. I fell down a cliff trying to get away and landed in a lake. The trolls thought I’d drowned, but they got Ivar. The Mountain Queen shut him up in her cave.”

“So Frith didn’t capture him. Her mother did,” said Jack.

“The Mountain Queen was getting a little desperate. None of the louts would have Frith. None of the ogres or goblins, either. The Mountain Queen could have tortured them into agreeing, but it’s a poor way to start a marriage.”

“Was… Ivar tortured?”

“Oh, no! He was delighted. He couldn’t see Frith’s true nature, as the others did. He thought he was getting the most beautiful princess in the world.”

“He was always somewhat shallow,” commented Rune. “I could have seen through her in a second.”

“By the time I arrived, they were already married,” said Olaf. “I did knock a few Jotuns around to free Ivar, but they didn’t resist much. The Mountain Queen was anxious to move her daughter out of the house.”

They had come now to the end of the fjord, where it widened out into a lake. On the far side Jack saw a meadow covered with swaths of blue, pink, yellow, purple, and white flowers. The perfume reached them from across the water. “That’s nice,” said Jack, wishing they could stay in the meadow and not get closer to the mountain.

“Hellebore, wolfsbane, nightshade, and troll’s breath,” said Rune. “In our world they’re poisonous if you eat them. In this one the perfume alone knocks you out.”

“You’re joking!”

“This is Jotunheim. Everything’s nastier.”

Jack eyed the approaching shore with dismay. The flowers were larger than the ones he was used to and swayed slightly in the breeze (was there a breeze?). The ground beneath them looked boggy. “Once you’re on the other side, there’s a reasonably safe stretch of forest. You can camp there,” said the old warrior.

“I can camp there? What about you?”

“Once I would have welcomed such a quest, but now…” Rune sighed. “Speed and concealment are important for your success. Thus, only two men will go with you. Olaf will, of course, be one of them. The rest of us will wait back in the fjord. This lake, peaceful as it seems, isn’t a good place to stay.”

Jack was stunned. He hadn’t welcomed the trip to Jotunheim, but the presence of six Northmen plus Olaf, Rune, and Thorgil offered some safety. Now he was down to two! “How will we ever find you?”

“We’ll return here every day,” said Rune. “I’d suggest waiting in the forest until you can see us.”

They stopped some distance from shore, where the perfume wasn’t too intense. Still, when the breeze shifted, the Northmen moved more slowly and Bold Heart fell off his perch a couple of times.

They packed food and some water, though water would be plentiful until they got to the ice. Rune gave Jack a small bottle of poppy juice to dull pain, “in case you need it.” That probably means I will need it, thought Jack. The bottle was of blown glass, not the dull flasks the Bard stored his best elixirs in, but clear as ice with a poppy molded on its side. “Sometimes pain can kill as surely as a knife blade,” said Rune.

He gave Olaf a flask molded in the form of a wolf’s head. The odor sent a chill along Jack’s nerves. It was bog myrtle, already brewed and ready to go. Somewhere along the way Olaf intended to go berserk.