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
