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.
