PART 3

  Odin turned his back as Fafnir pulled a large sack from his belt and began to pile the treasure into it. Freya, released, fled across the grass to the Aesir, and Frigga caught her in an embrace. Freyr hugged her as well, and Thor stood looking blissful in his relief. Now that she was restored to them, even the autumn air seemed softer. The trees rustled as new buds opened, and birds burst into an ecstasy of song. But as background to the sounds of spring, he heard the giants begin to wrangle bitterly.

  “Give it to me!” demanded Fafnir, for it seemed that Fasolt had hold of the ring.

  Odin glanced back to see Fasolt turning the ring in his palm, his brow corrugated in painful thought. He said slowly, “I do not see why you should have it, Fafnir. I was the one who wanted to keep Freya. All you wanted was the treasure. So you should let me have what I want. It’s not as if it was very much; it’s only a little gold ring.” But as he turned it in his thick fingers, a light of adoration shone in his small eyes that had not been evident even when he gazed at Freya.

  “Give it to me,” growled Fafnir. “You stupid oaf, we would not even have it if I had not twisted it out of the old one-eyed cheat.” He made a grab for the ring, but Fasolt snatched his hand away with surprising speed. Without hesitation Fafnir swung back his knotted club and brought it down in a savage blow.

  Fasolt dodged, warding the blow with his own stout staff. Then began a battle that raged up and down the meadow, blow traded for blow with mighty cracks, until the ground shuddered and leaves shivered on the trees. The Aesir huddled under the pines, watching in amazement as the combatants staggered back and forth. The birds ceased their singing and the wind hung silent. The only sounds were the thud of blows and rough breathing, punctuated by grunts.

  Heavy boots had churned the meadow to mud and the grove of trees beyond lay ravaged and uprooted, when at last Fasolt halted to lean on his staff and say in his slow, aggrieved way, “Now, look here—”

  Fafnir did not pause. He struck a last fierce blow at Fasolt’s skull. The crack resounded in the hills. Fasolt blinked at him with bewilderment, then fell as a great tree falls, and Odin felt the ground shudder at the impact. Fafnir reached down and with a grunt wrenched the ring from Fasolt’s hand.

  The Aesir stood in horrified silence. “The curse has begun its work already,” murmured Frigga, her voice breaking. Freya flung her arms around her brother, burying her face against him, and he put an arm around her.

  Fafnir straightened and turned toward them. His face wore a terrible blind mask of greed, empty of remorse. Clutching the ring, he strode toward them and the pile of treasure, still lying undisturbed on the trampled hillside. The Aesir shrank back in fear. Odin stepped forward, flinging up his spear in protection, and a fiery whipcrack of lightning licked the sky.

  Fafnir halted and laughed a terrible, vast laugh that reechoed in the hills. “Do not worry, my dainty lords,” he said. “I will not harm you. I have your word— I know I can trust it— and all your pretty trinkets as well.” With a malicious chuckle he plucked the tarnhelm from the treasure, clapped it on his head, and stood fondling the ring in his hand.

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  It was too much. Odin felt a roaring, berserk rage engulf his mind. He forgot his oath, his danger, the runes, the Aesir, everything. Raising his spear he rushed on Fafnir with a shout of thunder. Thor and Freyr leapt to hold him back but he brushed them aside. Lightning danced on the hilltops as he raised his spear.

  But Fafnir laughed again, a mighty, ferocious laugh that changed into a roar. For suddenly he shot up to an even greater height; his skin changed color, grew mottled, scaled and dark green; his jaw lengthened to a snout full of yellow teeth, and over Odin loomed a dragon, immense and terrifying.

  The sudden change shocked Odin back to his senses. He stood open-mouthed, staring up. The dragon that was Fafnir gave a great “Hah!” expelling a sheet of flame, and grinned at him. Frigga was on one side of him, tugging on his arm, and Thor on the other; he let them draw him back.

  “Fear not, Odin,” said Fafnir in a hideous rasping voice. “I will guard the treasure well. It will be safe with me for a long, long time to come.”

  He laughed again, and Odin winced in horror at the sound. Then Fafnir swung his great saurian head around, and dragging his bulk over to Fasolt’s dead body began to devour it.

  With a shudder Odin turned away from the crunch of bones and the snap of tendons, following the other Aesir toward the foot of Bifrost where it gleamed beyond the trees. As they climbed the bridge with Freya rejoicing in their midst, the air grew milder and the sunlight brighter. Asgard’s eternal springtime was returning. A little while, and she would pluck for each of them an apple from her tree; then the stiffness would vanish from their joints and the ache from their bones. But Odin was possessed by dread. He could not shake off a sense of disaster looming over Asgard.

  At the crest of the Rainbow Bridge he paused, letting the others go on laughing into Asgard. They seemed already to have forgotten the malice of the giant in dragon shape they had left behind them. They were like children in many ways, and he felt as if he were ancient, their only protector. Only Frigga lingered, laying her hand on his arm as if she wished she could offer him comfort.

  “What is it?” she asked. “We have Freya back; that is all that matters.”

  Odin sighed, looking down into the mists of autumn veiling the distant lands of men. They were fair, tilth and vineyard, homestead and harbor, mantled in shades of blue and green and brown; and vulnerable to dangers that men could not yet even guess. He shook his head. “Albric will not cease to try to regain the ring. And the day he does, Asgard and Middle-earth will fall. He will see to it.”

  Frigga’s hand tightened on his arm. “But there is nothing you can do. You have sworn an oath not to try to regain it yourself, or to send anyone else—”

  “Yes,” he said heavily. He added slowly, as the thought formed in his mind, “But the race of men has not sworn. I need a hero, a man unconstrained by the laws of gods or men, able to regain the ring for me of his own free will.”

  “And why should any mortal do that?”

  “Because it is a challenge,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Because there is gold to be gained, and evil to be overcome, and glory to be won. That is why.”

  “But where will you find such a man? Midgard is not overrun with heroes, despite the claims of your oft-vaunted Volsungs.”

  With a lift of his heart for the first time in days, he said almost gaily, “Why, I may have to create him— Or at least mold him to my liking.” He took her arm, leading her on up the bright span of the bridge. “Be patient, Frigga. We have a long, long time before us.”